THE    NE\V     FRONTIER 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  LIBERAL 

SPIRIT,    ITS    FRONTIER    ORIGIN, 

AND    ITS   APPLICATION   TO 

MODERN    PROBLEMS 

\ 

BY 

GUY  EMERSON 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


THIS    BOOK   IS   DEDICATED 

WITH    SINCERE   ADMIRATION   TO   MY  ASSOCIATES 
IN    A   GREAT   AMERICAN    BANK  — 

TRUE    PIONEERS    ON    THE    NEW    FRONTIER 

FROM    WHOM    I    HAVE    LEARNED    MUCH 

OF  THE  POWER  AND  INSPIRATION 

OF     CLEAN     LIBERAL 

AMERICANISM 


4 938 7 4 


PREFACE 

THE  main  thesis  of  this  book  is  one  that  em 
phatically  needs  to  be  uttered,  and  that  is  uttered 
here  with  admirable  force,  with  convincing  argu 
ment,  with  copious  illustration.  It  proclaims  a 
truth  which  is  in  danger  of  escaping  our  attention 
amid  the  general  clamor  of  the  times.  That  truth 
is  this:  America  is  not  radical;  America  is  not 
reactionary;  American  is  liberal.  And  what  she 
has  been  she  will  continue  to  be  for  the  simple  and 
sufficient  reason  that  liberalism  is  native  to  the 
very  air  she  breathes,  is  the  compelling  product  of 
her  history,  is  the  heart  of  her  national  tradition, 
is  the  essence  of  her  national  psychology.  _  ". 

We  are  being  much  advised  these  days  by  many 
confident  monitors  of  the  public  to  discard  our  rich 
inheritance,  as  the  work  of  men  of  darkened  or  narrow 
minds  or  of  malevolent  spirit.  We  shall  not  do  so. 
At  no  time  in  her  history  has  America  stood  still  in 
complacent  adoration  of  the  past.  At  no  stage  has 
she  been  willing  to  cast  aside  her  fundamental 
institutions  and  her  customary  habits  of  mind,  both 
of  which  have  served  her  well  in  many  a  period  of 
trouble.  Also  at  no  stage  has  she  been  indisposed  to 
improve  the  things  that  could  be  improved.  America 
is  neither  troglodytic  nor  quixotic.  She  is  optimistic 
and  she  is  sensible. 

But  this  fundamental  and  pervasive  liberalism  of 
America  is  not  a  detached  force  of  nature  operating 


vi  PREFACE 

ceaselessly  and  inevitably  for  the  prosperity  and 
happiness  of  the  nation,  is  not  something  outside 
ourselves  working  automatically  for  righteousness. 
It  is  a  personal  force.  It  is  the  wisdom  and  the 
purpose  that  each  individual  is  able  to  distil  from 
the  experiences  of  our  people.  It  is  self-conscious, 
and,  therefore,  the  liberalism  of  America  needs  con 
scious  organization  and  direction  that  it  may  be 
applied  always  and  at  every  point  to  national 
problems  as  they  arise. 

These  ideas  and  many  others  are  set  forth  in  this 
book  with  freshness,  with  vitality,  with  enthusiasm 
and  with  faith,  controlled  by  a  fine  sense  of  the 
actual  and  of  the  possible.  What  is  needed  in 
America  to-day  is,  as  the  author  says,  the  organiza 
tion  of  all  the  liberal  forces  of  the  country,  for,  if 
united,  they  are  irresistible,  whereas,  if  disunited 
and  dispersed,  they  lose  their  force,  and  general 
muddle  results.  America  is  not  going  to  disown 
her  past  for  the  excellent  reason  that  she  knows 
that  it  has  contributed  incalculably  to  her  well- 
being  and  will  continue  to  contribute.  She  will 
not  follow  the  frantic  exhortations  of  the  panacea- 
mongers,  since  her  sense  of  humor  will  forbid.  Not 
vague  Utopianism  but  reasoned  "'programs  of 
reform  will  appeal  to  her  in  the  future  as  they  have 
appealed  to  her  in  the  past. 

A  remark  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  recurs  to 
mind:  "The  destiny  of  this  country  is  great  and 
liberal.  Nothing  is  impracticable  to  this  nation 
which  it  shall  set  itself  to  do."  It  is  because  this 
book  is  charged  and  surcharged  with  this  faith  that 
it  is  both  tonic  and  true. 

CHARLES  DOWNER  HAZEN. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ix 

THE  FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER  ....  3 

THE  LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA  ......  35 

WHAT  is  A  LIBERAL? 56 

THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD   .    .  78 

PUBLIC  OPINION  AND  THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  .  105 

THE  NEED  FOR  FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS    .    .  144 

AN  AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS 160 

HUMAN  RESOURCES 190 

THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH 213 

THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    ...  253 

THE  NEW  FRONTIER 279 

APPENDIX „  305 

INDEX 309 


"Always  it  has  been  the  frontier  which  has 
allured  many  of  our  boldest  souls.  And  always 
just  back  of  the  frontier,  advancing,  receding, 
crossing  it  this  way  and  that,  succeeding  and  fail 
ing,  hoping  and  despairing  —  but  steadily  advanc 
ing  in  the  net  result  —  has  come  that  portion  of 
the  population  which  builds  homes  and  lives  in 
them,  and  which  is  not  content  with  a  blanket 
for  a  bed  and  the  sky  for  a  roof  above.  .  .  .  The 
frontier  has  been  the  lasting  and  ineradicable  in 
fluence  for  the  good  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
there  we  showed  our  fighting  edge,  our  inconquer- 
able  resolution,  our  undying  faith.  There,  for  a 
time  at  least,  we  were  Americans.  We  had  our 
frontier.  We  shall  do  ill  indeed  if  we  forget  and 
abandon  its  strong  lessons,  its  great  hopes,  its 
splendid  human  dreams."  —  EMERSON  HOUGH. 


"Between  the  blind  forces  on  one  side  and  the 
other  of  the  industrial  conflict  stands  a  more  or 
less  enlightened  middle  group,  which  is  trying  to 
discern  not  a  balance  of  power  but  an  equilibrium 
of  justice.  That  is  Roosevelt's  group.  Retrained 
it.  He  more  than  any  other  modern  figure  helped 
to  form  the  ideals  of  what  we  loosely  call  'the 
public/"  —  From  an  editorial  in  The  Globe  (New  York). 


vui 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  great  word  Americanism  has  suffered  from 
indiscriminate  use. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  present  unrest  in  this 
country  is  due  to  the  widespread  failure  to  under 
stand  the  significance  of  the  American  system  of 
society  and  government.  An  honest  but  often 
somewhat  superficial  Americanism  needs  to  be  en 
riched  by  a  more  specific,  reasoned  patriotism, 
based  upon  a  knowledge  of  what  America  was,  and 
is,  and  may  become.  If  we  delve  beneath  the  name 
we  may  reveal  the  heart. 

Such  a  process  is  capable  of  disclosing  to  Ameri 
cans  sources  of  confidence  in  the  fundamentals  of 
democracy  too  firm  to  be  shaken  by  the  propo 
nents  of  new  and  strange  systems;  it  is  capable  of 
supplying  profound  reasons  in  support  of  what 
has  come  to  be,  in  many  minds,  a  pure  assumption 
that  Americanism  is  superior  to  any  other  theory 
of  society  or  form  of  government. 

If  we  are  "  a  nation  of  idealists  with  a  genius  for 
the  practical,"  if  we  can  revivify  the  splendid 
vision  of  the  pioneers  who  firmly  established  and 
handed  down  to  us  a  nation  great  in  material  wealth 
and  equally  great  in  its  fundamental  idealism,  we 
can  proceed  with  stout  hearts  toward  our  own 


x  INTRODUCTION 

frontiers.  If  we  can  spread  throughout  the  nation 
the  strong,  youthful  faith  which  built  America, 
hysteria  will  disappear.  And  without  hysterical 
opposition  rebellious  agitation  cannot  long  flourish 
in  the  land. 

In  this  book  two  main  points  are  emphasized; 
first,  that  the  spirit  of  that  portion  of  our  people 
which  has  actually  shaped  the  destinies  of  America 
has  been  liberal,  rather  than  radical  or  conservative. 
The  influence  of  the  radical,  and  the  counteracting 
influence  of  the  conservative,  are  equally  useful. 
But  the  liberal  —  the  vigorous,  middle-of-the-road 
man  or  woman  does  most  of  the  work  of  the 
world,  and  in  America,  policies  are  in  the  end  de 
termined  by  the  workers,  whether  they  work  with 
hand  or  with  brain  —  or  with  both.  Thus,  the 
liberals  furnish  most  of  the  leaders  whom  the  people, 
year  in  and  year  out,  are  ready  to  follow. 

Second,  it  is  claimed  that  our  national  spirit  has 
taken  its  essential  liberal  flavor  from  the  frontier, 
from  the  generations  of  tireless,  self-reliant  effort 
which  won  this  continent  for  the  men  and  women 
of  our  own  day  and  which  stamped  them  with  its 
indelible  character.  This  is  the  greatest  source  of 
self-confidence  and  power  in  the  American  tradition. 
It  is  the  spirit  which  must  inspire  American  leader 
ship;  it  is  also  the  spirit  of  the  strong,  clean,  re 
sourceful  average  man,  with  hope  in  his  heart. 

The  New  Frontier  is  not  a  new  theory.  It  is  a 
method  of  approach,  which  is  half  the  battle.  It 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

involves  meeting  modern  American  problems  not 
with  a  new-fashioned  spirit,  but  with  the  faith  of  our 
fathers.  The  spirit  called  for  in  the  leaders  and 
prophets  of  our  own  day  is  not  new.  Fundamentally 
the  Americanism  of  Lincoln  is  no  more  modern  than 
the  spirit  of  Columbus,  of  Cromwell,  of  Joan  of 
Arc,  of  Christ.  It  is  not  new,  but  eternal.  It  is  our 
application  of  this  spirit  to  new  conditions  which 
gives  it  a  distinctive  power  and  appeal. 

Americanism  is  the  world  force  of  courage '  and 
capacity  and  justice  brought  to  bear  upon  American 
continental  conditions  by  generations  of  free,  strong, 
resourceful  men  and  women.  If  we  meet  the  new 
frontiers  with  this  spirit  we  shall  still  make  mis 
takes,  as  our  fathers  did  before  us;  but  the  element 
of  error  will  not  be  fundamental.  And  as  it  was 
true  of  them,  so  will  it  be  true  of  us,  that  the  ele 
ment  of  success  will  be  preponderant.  More  than 
this  no  nation  can  ask. 

At  a  time  when  party  platforms  are  being  re 
written  because  the  old  parties  are  without  dis 
tinctive  programs,  at  a  time  when  the  social  and 
industrial  structure  is  being  readjusted  to  meet  a 
new  spirit,  it  becomes  increasingly  necessary  to 
return  to  first  principles.  At  a  time  when  there  is 
need  for  all  the  patience  of  which  our  people  are 
capable,  when  their  native  ingenuity  and  their 
capacity  for  hard  work  are  called  upon  to  the  ut 
most,  it  is  essential  that  they  take  account  of  the 
stores  of  human  energy  and  achievement  in  their 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

own  history  which  they  have  the  right  to  draw 
upon  as  a  basis  for  self-confidence  and  as  a  source 
of  inspiration  and  hope. 

The  principles  underlying  Americanism  are  simple. 
But  it  is  not  a  simple  task  to  give  them  adequate 
expression.  The  outstanding  importance  of  the 
undertaking  today  must  justify  this  attempt. 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN 
CHARACTER 

WHAT  do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  the  American 
spirit  or  the  American  character?  Is  there  a  peculiar 
quality  in  the  American  as  distinguished  from  the 
European  or  the  South  American  or  the  Asiatic? 
If  so,  it  is  clearly  an  important  responsibility  of 
our  time  to  find  out  wherein  the  distinction  lies, 
to  understand  what  the  basis  of  Americanism  is, 
and  to  cleave  to  it  and  build  upon  it. 

If  we  are  not  simply  a  mass  of  assorted  units  of 
the  human  race  who  happen  for  the  present  to  be 
living  in  a  section  of  North  America  between  Canada 
and  the  Gulf,  if  we  really  are  a  cohesive  people  with 
distinctive  traditions  and  characteristic  ideals,  it  is 
obviously  important  to  trace  out  these  traditions 
and  these  ideals  and  to  set  them  forth  for  the  guid 
ance  and  inspiration  of  ourselves  and  of  our  children. 
If  there  is  in  the  tradition  of  America  something 
concrete  and  simple  to  stimulate  and  inspire,  it  is 
vital  in  these  days  when  so  many  merchants  of 
government  are  offering  something  "just  as  good," 
that  we  should  re-vivify  our  traditions  and  that  we 
should  apply  the  principles  inherent  in  them,  with 
such  changes  as  may  be  called  for,  but  with  all 

3 


4  -  THE.  NEW  FRONTIER 

their  native  vigor,  to  the  new  conditions  of  our 
own  time. 

Ask  the  average  man  to  define  the  American 
spirit  and  he  will  perhaps  say  that  its  principal 
characteristic  is  a  love  of  liberty.  But  one  has 
only  to  turn  to  the  history  of  any  century  in  almost 
any  country  to  find  the  record  of  men  who  were 
willing  to  die  for  liberty.  Some  there  may  be 
who  will  assert  that  democracy  was  conceived  in 
America;  but  the  most  casual  reading  of  history 
will  show  that  every  principle  of  democracy  upon 
which  our  institutions  are  based  had  been  ably 
stated  and,  to  some  extent,  put  into  practice  before 
1776.  Obviously  in  defining  the  American  spirit 
we  are  not  discussing  elements  which  can  be  classi 
fied  sharply  or  characterized  in  a  word. 

Superficially  the  casual  observer  would  be  apt 
to  say  that  we  were  much  like  our  neighbors  of 
Europe  except  for  minor  differences  in  mannerism, 
or  language  or  dress.  But  if  we  are  to  understand 
the  American  spirit  it  is  necessary  to  regard  it  as 
an  attitude  of  mind,  a  point  of  view,  a  method  of 
approach,  or  deeper  still,  a  fundamental  form  of 
self-confidence,  conviction  and  faith. 

The  initial  inspiration  for  the  view  of  the  Ameri 
can  spirit  taken  in  these  pages  is  due  to  Professor 
Frederick  J.  Turner,  of  Harvard,  whose  brilliant 
studies  of  the  influence  of  the  frontier  upon  Ameri 
can  history  have  been  conclusive  in  shaping  modern 
thought  upon  American  historical  subjects.  In  the 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER      5 

best  known  of  these  papers,  read  before  the  State 
Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin  in  1893,  Professor 
Turner  said,  "all  people  show  development:  the 
germ  theory  of  politics  has  been  sufficiently  em 
phasized.  In  the  case  of  most  nations,  however, 
the  development  has  occurred  in  a  limited  area; 
and  if  the  nation  has  expanded,  it  has  met  other 
growing  peoples  whom  it  has  conquered.  But  in 
the  case  of  the  United  States  we  have  a  different 
phenomenon.  Limiting  our  attention  to  the  At 
lantic  coast,  we  have  the  familiar  phenomenon  of 
the  evolution  of  institutions  in  a  limited  area  such 
as  a  rise  of  representative  government;  the  dif 
ferentiation  of  simple  colonial  governments  into 
complex  organs;  the  progress  from  primitive  in 
dustrial  society,  without  division  of  labor,  up  to 
manufacturing  civilization. 

"We  have  in  addition  to  this  a  recurrence  of  the 
process  of  evolution  in  each  western  area  reached 
in  the  process  of  expansion.  Thus  American  devel 
opment  has  exhibited,  not  merely  advance  along 
a  single  line,  but  a  return  to  primitive  conditions 
on  a  continually  advancing  frontier  line,  and  a  new 
development  for  that  area.  American  social  de 
velopment  has  been  continually  beginning  over 
again  on  the  frontier.  This  perennial  re-birth,  this 
fluidity  of  American  life,  this  expansion  westward 
with  its  new  opportunities,  its  continuous  touch 
with  the  simplicity  of  primitive  society,  furnish  the 
forces  dominating  American  character." 


6  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

No  more  profound  words  were  ever  written  with 
regard  to  the  history  of  the  American  people. 
"This  perennial  re-birth,  this  fluidity  of  American 
life,"  which  shaped  the  character  of  our  ancestors 
has  come  down  to  us  as  a  firm  and  priceless  inheri 
tance.  And  these  ancestors  of  ours  who  took  par: 
in  "this  expansion  westward  with  its  new  oppor 
tunities,  its  continuous  touch  with  the  simplicity 
of  primitive  society"  are  not  remote  forebears 
shrouded  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  They  were 
the  great-grandparents,  or  even  the  grandfathers  and 
grandmothers  of  men  and  women  now  in  the  prime 
of  life.  The  tradition  is  still  vivid  along  the  Ohio 
River;  in  different  manifestations  it  makes  itself 
vividly  felt  in  almost  every  community  from  the 
Alleghanies  to  the  Pacific.  Even  today  it  has  left 
behind  it  in  the  West  a  vigor,  a  youthful  freshness 
which  is  so  abounding  that  it  is  noticeable  even 
in  the  speech  and  action  of  the  people  to  an  extent 
which  is  not  evident  in  the  East  and  South. 

But  this  does  not  mean  that  the  same  eternal 
youthfulness  has  not  permeated  the  whole  nation, 
including  the  people  of  the  Atlantic  coast.  It 
has.  Its  manifestations  may  be  less  apparent  in 
Boston  than  in  Zanesville,  Ohio;  but  at  heart  the 
Bostonians  of  today  are.  the  same  vigorous  race 
that  sent  hundreds  of  families  to  the  great  North 
west.  And  particularly  in  New  York,  which  has 
drawn  its  people  from  all  parts  of  America,  there 
is  evident  a  pioneer  quality  of  mind,  a  creative 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER     7 

energy,  an  alertness  of  step  and  bearing,  a  restless 
ambition  which  shows  us  to  be  true  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  long  period  of  frontier  life  which 
forms  the  heart  of  our  history. 

First  we  have  the  old  stocks  coming  over  to  the  At 
lantic  coast  of  America,  just  as  the  English  have 
for  years  been  crowded  out  of  their  little  island  to 
the  borders  of  the  seven  seas.  But  in  America  we 
have  some  new  elements.  We  have  men  of  many 
nations  joining  on  a  basis  of  vigorous  competition. 
Another  decisive  element  is  added  when  all  ex 
pectation  of  returning  to  the  mother  country  is 
abandoned.  We  see  men  moved  by  all  the  vigor 
and  stimulus  of  self-sacrifice  which  comes  from 
winning  a  home  and  earning  a  living  under  the  free 
and  inspiring  influence  of  vast  spaces.  We  have  all 
the  romance  and  strenuousness  of  thousands  of 
years  of  the  slow  upward  progress  of  the  race 
crowded  into  a  century. 

In  the  words  of  Professor  Turner  "The  United 
States  lies  like  a  huge  page  in  the  history  of  society. 
Line  by  line  as  we  read  from  West  to  East  we  find 
the  record  of  social  evolution.  It  begins  with  the 
Indian  and  the  hunter;  it  goes  on  to  tell  of  disin 
tegration  of  savagery  by  the  evidence  of  the  trader, 
the  pathfinder  of  civilization.  We  read  the  annals 
of  the  pastoral  stage  in  ranch  life;  the  exploitation 
of  the  soil  by  the  raising  of  unrotated  crops  of  corn 
and  wheat  in  sparsely  settled  farming  communi 
ties;  the  intensity  of  cultivation  of  the  denser  farm 


8  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

settlement;  and  finally  the  manufacturing  organi 
zation  with  city  and  factory  system.  .  .  .  Stand 
at  Cumberland  Gap  and  watch  the  procession  of 
civilization  marching  single  file,  the  buffalo  follow 
ing  the  trail  to  the  salt  springs,  the  Indian,  the  fur 
trader  and  hunter,  the  cattle  raiser,  the  pioneer 
farmer  —  and  the  frontier  has  passed  by.  Stand  at 
South  Pass  in  the  Rockies  a  century  later  and  see 
the  same  procession  with  wider  intervals  between. 
The  unequal  rate  of  advance  compels  us  to  dis 
tinguish  the  frontier  into  the  trader's  frontier,  the 
rancher's  frontier,  or  the  miner's  frontier  and  the 
farmer's  frontier.  When  the  mines  and  the  cow 
pens  were  still  near  the  fall  line,  the  trader's  pack 
trains  were  tinkling  across  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
French  on  the  Great  Lakes  were  fortifying  their 
posts,  alarmed  by  the  British  trader's  birch  canoe. 
When  the  trappers  scaled  the  Rockies,  the  former 
was  still  near  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri." 

At  first  the  individualism  of  the  men  who  crossed 
the  Alleghanies  tended  to  produce  a  sectional  rather 
than  a  national  feeling.  The  point  of  view  of 
Europe  ceased  more  and  more  to  be  the  point  of 
view  of  the  backwoodsman  and  the  pioneer  as  he 
placed  the  Alleghanies  between  himself  and  the 
Atlantic.  These  vigorous  men  who  matched  their 
strength  with  the  strength  of  the  forest  and  the 
prairie  soon  ceased  to  accept  without  question  the 
constituted  authority  of  the  Virginia  fathers.  It 
was  this  nationalizing  tendency  of  the  West  that 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER     9 

transformed  the  democracy  of  Jefferson  into  the 
national  Republicanism  of  Monroe  and  the  De 
mocracy  of  Andrew  Jackson.  This  independence, 
like  all  newly  discovered  freedom,  tended  to  out 
run  itself,  so  that  individual  liberty  was  sometimes  con 
fused  with  the  absence  of  all  effective  government. 

These  men  of  the  Western  waters,  as  they  called 
themselves,  were  able  to  shift  for  themselves  with 
out  fear  or  favor.  Their  life  of  work,  the  life  that 
brought  out  the  most  vigorous  self-reliance  and  in 
dividualism,  and  their  attitude  toward  the  civili 
zation  which  they  had  left  behind  in  the  tidewater 
regions,  soon  began  to  develop  in  them  an  attitude 
of  mind  which  was  well  expressed  by  a  representative 
from  Western  Virginia  in  the  Virginia  Convention 
of  1830:  "But,  Sir,  it  is  not  the  increase  of  popula 
tion  in  the  West  which  this  gentleman  ought  to 
fear.  It  is  the  energy  which  the  mountain  breeze 
and  Western  habits  impart  to  those  inhabitants. 
They  are  regenerated,  politically  I  mean,  Sir. 
They  soon  become  working  politicians;  and  the 
difference  between  a  talking  and  a  working  politician 


is  immense." 


But  what  are  the  traits  that  came  out  of  this  life? 
What  elements  of  character  arose  from  this  tu 
multuous  pouring  of  a  mixed  race  of  people  into  the 
primeval  forest  and  out  across  the  prairie?  "The 
result  is  that  to  the  frontier  the  American  intellect 
owes  its  striking  characteristics,  that  coarseness  and 
strength  combined  with  acuteness  and  inquisitive- 


io  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

ness,  that  practical,  inventive  turn  of  mind,  quick 
to  find  expedients,  that  masterful  grasp  of  material 
things,  lacking  in  the  artistic  but  powerful  to  effect: 
great  ends,  that  restless,  nervous  energy,  thai: 
dominant  individualism  working  for  good  and  evil 
and  withal  that  buoyancy  and  exuberance  which 
comes  with  freedom  —  these  are  traits  of  the 
frontier,  or  traits  called  out  elsewhere  because  of 
the  existence  of  the  frontier." 

If  we  may  return  for  a  moment  to  the  East,  as  a 
contrast  to  this  nervous  energy  of  the  Westerners, 
it  is  a  fact  that  colonial  travelers  all  commented 
upon  the  phlegmatic  character  of  the  earlier  colo 
nists  along  the  Atlantic  Coast.  Henry  Adams  in 
his  brilliant  volumes  on  the  administrations  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  in  a  final  summary  of  the 
American  character  at  about  1817,  says,  "Society 
was  weary  of  strife,  and  settled  gladly  into  a  po 
litical  system  which  left  every  disputed  point  un 
determined.  The  public  seemed  obstinate  only  in 
believing  all  was  for  the  best,  as  far  as  the  United 
States  was  concerned,  in  the  affairs  of  mankind. 
The  contrast  was  great  between  this  temper  of 
mind  and  that  in  which  the  Constitution  had  been 
framed.  .  .  .  The  rapid  accumulation  of  wealth 
and  increase  in  physical  comfort  told  the  same 
story  from  the  standpoint  of  economy.  On  every 
side  society  showed  that  ease  was  for  a  time  to  take 
the  place  of  severity,  and  enjoyment  was  to  have 
its  full  share  in  the  future  national  existence." 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER     11 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  mildness  character 
istic  of  the  eastern  Americans  as  described  by 
Henry  Adams,  grew  more  out  of  reaction  against  a 
period  of  unusual  energy  than  out  of  anything  in 
the  fundamental  character  of  the  people.  The  im 
pulses  which  moved  the  men  and  women  who 
originally  crossed  the  Atlantic  of  their  own  free  will 
were  impulses  of  a  kind  which  were  not  likely  to 
die  out  in  a  few  generations.  They  still  persisted, 
though  latent,  in  many  who  did  not  cross  the  Al- 
leghanies.  The  only  qualification  which  a  New 
Englander  might  care  to  make  to  Professor  Turner's 
profound  and  convincing  analysis  of  the  effect  of 
the  frontier  in  shaping  American  character  would 
be  that  perhaps  the  results  described  could  not 
have  been  produced  so  readily  in  a  people  who 
lacked  in  the  first  place  something  of  the  craving 
for  adventure  and  the  love  of  freedom  analogous  to 
it.  People  less  inspired  would  not  have  been  so 
eager  for  "elbow  room."  They  would  not  have 
been  so  likely  to  seek  the  frontier,  nor  to  have  been 
able  to  cope  with  its  rigors  after  they  had  found 
it.  This  qualification,  doubtless  assumed  by  Mr. 
Turner,  would  simply  tend  to  strengthen  the  conclu 
sions  reached  but  would  perhaps  modify  in  a  minor 
degree  the  credit  due  to  the  frontier  conditions 
themselves  and  give  a  small  part  of  the  credit  to 
the  inherent  vigor  of  the  selected  group  that  chose 
to  subject  itself  to  the  frontier  influences.  To 
emphasize  the  pioneer  element  in  the  fathers  of 


12  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  frontiersman  of  the  American  West  is  merely 
to  follow  a  little  closer  to  its  roots  the  character  of 
our  people  and  to  find  additional  reason  for  con 
fidence  in  their  self-reliance  and  versatility. 

This  is  important  because  the  American  spirit  is 
not  to  be  distinguished  from  any  other  national 
spirit  to  any  great  extent  by  reason  of  the  exclusive 
possession  of  any  particular  qualities.  Other  na 
tions  have  had  frontiers.  National  character  has  in 
other  instances  been  influenced  by  restless  and 
vigorous  pioneers.  But  no  state  or  nation,  no 
people,  has  been,  to  the  same  extent,  influenced  by 
the  elements  in  human  character  growing  out  of 
the  continuous  opening  up  of  new  country,  the  re 
peated  seeking  out  of  new  homes  by  the  people, 
the  constantly  refreshed  and  perpetuated  spirit  of 
reliance  upon  self  as  the  only  stable  and  permanent 
element  in  a  constantly  shifting  environment. 

That  this  spirit  has  persisted  down  to  our  own 
day  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  prove.  It  is  in  the  air. 
It  is  in  the  hearts  of  our  people.  It  shone  from  the 
faces  of  two  million  men  who  carried  the .  fresh 
strength  and  youthfulness  of  America  to  war- 
jaded  Europe  —  and  carried  new  heart  to  those 
wonderful  soldiers  of  France.  Did  anyone  fail  to 
recognize  this  spirit?  Everyone  felt  it.  But  even 
Americans  themselves  were  inclined  to  take  it  for 
granted.  It  is  the  greatest  single  asset  in  the 
United  States  today.  It  is  the  guarantee  of  the  per 
sistence  of  the  institutions  which  it  has  inspired, 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    13 

Roosevelt  loved  the  operf  spaces.  But  like  most 
out-of-door  Americans  his  love  of  nature  was  not 
purely  idyllic.  He  was  a  keen  hunter,  a  good 
ranchman,  a  naturalist  of  distinction.  He  was  one 
of  a  long  line  of  distinguished  Americans  who  have 
been  at  home  in  the  woods. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  some  of  our  most 
characteristic  Americans  have  been  surveyors  at 
some  period  of  their  lives.  This  list  includes 
Washington,  Daniel  Boone,  Andrew  Jackson, 
Thoreau,  Lincoln.  One  of  the  fundamental  things 
about  a  surveyor  is  that  he  blazes  a  trail;  that  he 
defines  boundaries  which  hitherto  have  been  vague 
and  in  dispute.  A  surveyor  in  the  first  place  must 
be  accurate,  and  in  the  second  place  he  must  be 
self-confident.  He  must  be  undismayed  by  any 
temporary  obstacles  and  barriers  which  stand  be 
tween  him  and  his  objective.  There  is  something 
particularly  appealing  in  this  type  of  man  in  this 
age  of  problems  so  varied  and  difficult  of  definition, 
with  so  many  human  and  material  variants. 

George  Washington,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
was  in  command  of  troops  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
French  and  Indian  War.  At  exactly  the  same  age, 
seventy-six  years  later,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
chosen  captain  of  his  company  in  the  little  army  of 
volunteers  formed  to  fight  Black  Hawk  along  the 
frontier  between  the  Illinois  and  the  Wisconsin 
rivers.  Both  these  men  brought  to  the  over 
whelming  problems  of  their  later  years  the  steadi- 


14  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

ness  of  nerve,  the  self-confidence  and  the  patience 
which  resulted  from  their  early  training.  They  had 
experienced  the  cleansing  effect  of  contact  with 
woods  and  hills  and  rivers.  They  had  come  under 
the  strong,  clean  influence  which  has  had  so  powerful 
an  effect  upon  the  spirits  of  men  from  the  beginning 
of  recorded  history.  The  story  of  Christ  in  the 
wilderness,  the  tradition  of  Saint  Francis  and  his 
friendship  for  the  birds,  emphasize  the  influence 
which  open  spaces  —  which  nature  in  all  its  aspects 
has  exerted  upon  the  minds  of  men  down  to  our 
own  time,  and  will  always  exert.  It  is  not  easy  to 
gtand  among  the  ferns  on  the  edge  of  a  mountain 
brook,  with  the  sun  flickering  through  the  trees 
and  sending  shafts  of  gold  down  into  the  pools  and 
eddies,  and  deliver  a  well-rounded  and  effective 
anarchist  oration.  Nor  is  it  in  such  places  that 
men  devise  schemes  of  industrial  oppression. 

The  peasants  scattered  over  the  great  area  of 
Russia  are  not  radicals.  An  American  farmers' 
soviet  in  North  Dakota  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Even  in  the  great  congested  cities  of  America  it 
still  remains  to  be  proved  that  a  tradition  of  liberty 
and  opportunity  established  on  the  successive 
frontiers  of  a  continental  wilderness  are  going  to  be 
cast  aside  as  outworn,  simply  because  inequalities 
and  imperfections  exist  in  our  present  system. 
Undoubtedly  the  individualism  of  Crockett  and 
Boone  and  the  ringing  counsel:  "Trust  thyself! 
Every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string!"  need  to 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    15 

be  supplemented  by  a  fuller  vision  of  the  rights  of 
others,  the  principle  of  give  and  take,  the  willing 
ness  to  play  the  game  as  it  must  be  played  under 
twentieth  century  conditions.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  time  will  never  come  so 
long  as  America  is  America  when  a  vigorous  and 
constructive  individualism  will  be  subjected  to  a 
uniform  measuring-stick.  It  ought  never  be  pos 
sible  in  America  for  any  group  of  people  to  organize 
millions  of  men  to  the  extent  where  individual 
excellence  is  kept  down  by  an  arbitrary  prohibi 
tion  against  self-realization  and  personal  distinction. 
We  must  cling  to  the  individualism  of  the  pioneer 
spirit,  but  we  may  supplement  the  motto  "Trust 
thyself!"  with  this  otherwise  counsel,  "Trust  thy 
fellow  man." 

It  will  be  interesting  to  individualize  a  little  more 
the  frontier  life  and  to  see  what  kind  of  people 
these  frontiersmen  were.  Perhaps  if  we  can  catch 
their  spirit  it  can  be  traced  down  through  the 
generations  as  it  has  manifested  itself  in  the  lives  of 
a  few  individuals  who  are  by  common  consent  recog 
nized  as  typical  Americans.  The  best  way  to  call 
up  in  our  own  time  a  picture  of  the  backwoodsman 
of  the  Alleghanies  is  to  see  him  through  the  eyes  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  whose  whole  life  was  an  em 
bodiment  of  the  American  spirit. 

In  the  brilliant  fifth  chapter  of  "The  Winning  of 
the  West,"  Roosevelt  says,  "Along  the  western 
frontier  of  the  colonies  that  were  soon  to  be  the 


16  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

United  States,  among  the  foothills  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies  on  the  slopes  of  the  wooded  mountains  and 
in  the  long  trough-like  valleys  that  lay  between  the 
ranges  dwelt  a  peculiar  and  characteristically  Ameri 
can  people.  .  .  .  They  all  bore  a  strong  likeness 
to  one  another  in  their  habits  of  thought  and  ways 
of  living  and  differed  markedly  from  the  people  of 
the  older  and  more  civilized  communities  to  the 
Eastward." 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  these  backwoodsmen  were 
Americans  by  birth  and  parentage,  but  of  a  mixed 
race,  including  a  dominant  Presbyterian  Irish  ele 
ment  which  was  represented  by  Andrew  Jackson, 
Samuel  Houston,  David  Crockett,  and  James  Robert 
son.  "The  other  pioneers  who  stand  beside  the 
above  were  such  as  Sevier,  a  Shenandoah  Hugue 
not;  Shelby,  of  Welsh  blood;  and  Boone  and 
Clark,  both  of  English  stock."  There  were  Ger 
mans,  Huguenots,  Hollanders,  and  Swedes,  but  the 
Presbyterian  Irish,  who  are  most  commonly  re 
ferred  to  as  Scotch-Irish,  form  the  kernel  of  the 
distinctively  and  intensely  American  stock  who 
were  the  pioneers  of  our  people  in  their  march 
Westward,  the  vanguard  "of  the  army  of  fighting 
settlers,  who  with  axe  and  rifle  won  their  way  from 
the  Alleghanies  to  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Pacific." 

The  backwoodsmen  were  men  of  force  who  lived 
their  lives  in  rough  hewn  homes,  very  often  tem 
porary  in  character,  in  clearings  where  a  few  families 
were  grouped  together  throughout  the  wilderness. 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER     17 

"The  backwoodsmen's  dress,"  says  Roosevelt,  "was 
in  great  part  borrowed  from  his  Indian  foes.  He 
wore  a  fur  cap  or  felt  hat,  moccasins,  and  either 
loose,  thin  trousers  or  else  simply  leggings  of  buck 
skin  or  elk-hide  and  the  Indian  breech-clout.  He 
was  always  clad  in  the  fringed  hunting  shirt  of 
homespun  or  buckskin,  the  most  distinctively 
national  dress  ever  worn  in  America.  It  was  a 
loose  smock  or  tunic,  reaching  to  the  knees,  and 
held  in  at  the  waist  by  a  broad  belt  from  which 
hung  the  tomahawk  and  scalping  knife. 

"His  weapon  was  the  long,  small-bore  flint-lock 
rifle,  clumsy  and  ill  balanced,  but  exceedingly  ac 
curate.  It  was  very  heavy,  and  when  upright 
reached  to  the  chin  of  a  tall  man.  .  .  .  The  marks 
men  almost  always  fired  from  a  rest  and  rarely  at 
a  very  long  range;  and  the  shooting  was  marvel- 
ously  accurate. 

"In  the  conquest  of  the  West  the  backwoods  axe, 
shapely,  well  poised,  with  long  haft  and  light  head, 
was  a  servant  hardly  standing  second  even  to  the 
rifle;  the  two  were  the  national  weapons  of  the 
American  backwoodsman  and  in  their  use  he  has 
never  been  excelled. 

"The  life  of  the  backwoodsman  was  one  long 
struggle.  The  forest  had  to  be  felled,  droughts, 
deep  snows,  freshets,  cloud  bursts,  forest  fires,  and 
all  the  other  dangers  of  a  wilderness  life  faced. 
Swarms  of  deer  flies,  mosquitoes,  and  midges  ren 
dered  life  a  torment  in  the  weeks  of  hot  weather. 


1 8  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Rattlesnakes  and  copperheads  were  very  plentiful 
and,  the  former  especially,  constant  sources  of 
danger  and  death.  Wolves  and  bears  were  inces 
sant  and  inveterate  foes  of  the  livestock  and  the 
cougar  or  panther  occasionally  attacked  man  as 
well. 

"Every  true  backwoodsman  was  a  hunter.  .  .  . 
He  perforce  acquired  keenness  of  eye,  through  ac 
quaintance  with  woodcraft  and  the  power  of  stand 
ing  the  severest  strains  of  fatigue,  hardship,  and 
exposure.  He  lived  out  in  the  woods  for  many 
months  with  no  food  but  meat,  and  no  shelter  what 
ever  unless  he  made  a  leanto  of  brush  or  crawled 
into  a  hollow  sycamore." 

*  It  is  easier  for  the  men  of  our  own  generation  to 
visualize  the  backwoodsman  himself,  than  to  visu 
alize  his  wife  and  children  in  the  hard  surroundings 
which  are  here  set  forth,  but  it  is  well  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  wife  of  the  backwoodsman  lived  the 
same  life  that  he  did,  partook  of  the  same  dangers, 
ate  the  same  food  and  kept  house  among  the  same 
primitive  inconveniences  and  total  absence  of  luxu 
ries.  And  when  their  children  were  born  they,  too, 
grew  up  in  the  same  hardship.  The  wilderness 
with  all  its  expanse  and  power  and  simplicity  made 
its  impress  on  their  character  and  ran  in  their  very 
blood.  "When  a  boy  was  twelve  years  old  he  was 
given  a  rifle  and  made  a  fort-soldier,  with  a  loop 
hole  where  he  was  to  stand  if  the  station  was  at 
tacked/'  The  men  and  women  so  trained  and  so 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    19 

reared  became  part  of  a  distinctive  race,  full  of 
vigor  and  individuality,  capable  of  exerting  a  tre 
mendous  influence  upon  all  who  came  in  contact 
with  them,  and  unlikely  themselves  to  be  too 
deeply  moved  by  the  influence  of  men  nurtured  in 
a  different  environment.  Simple,  vigorous,  direct, 
the  American  frontiersman  became  a  standard  for 
all  time  of  stalwart  and  self-reliant  manhood. 

Roosevelt  continues,  "A  single  generation  passed 
under  the  hard  conditions  of  life  in  the  wilderness 
•was  enough  to  weld  together  into  one  people  the 
representatives  of  these  numerous  and  wridely  dif 
ferent  races,  and  the  children  of  the  next  genera 
tion  became  indistinguishable  from  one  another. 
Long  before  the  first  Continental  Congress  as 
sembled,  the  backwoodsmen,  whatever  their  blood, 
had  become  Americans,  one  in  speech,  thought  and 
character,  clutching  firmly  the  land  in  which  their 
fathers  and  grandfathers  had  lived  before  them. 
.  .  .  They  had  become  as  emphatically  products 
native  to  the  soil  as  were  the  tough  and  supple 
hickories  out  of  which  they  fashioned  the  handles  of 
their  long,  light  axes.  Their  grim,  harsh,  narrow 
lives  were  yet  strangely  fascinating  and  full  of 
adventurous  toil  and  danger;  none  but  natures  as 
strong,  as  freedom  loving  and  as  full  of  blood  de 
fiance  as  theirs  could  have  endured  existence  on  the 
terms  which  these  men  found  pleasurable.  Their 
iron  surroundings  made  a  mould  which  turned  out 
all  alike  in  the  same  shape.  They  resembled  one 


20  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

another  and  they  differed  from  the  rest  of  the 
world  —  even  the  world  of  America,  and  infinitely 
more  the  world  of  Europe  —  in  dress,  in  customs 
and  in  mode  of  life." 

This  was  the  first  stage  in  the  great  epic  of  the 
American  frontier,  one  of  the  most  fascinating  and 
inspiring  stories  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It 
was  predominantly  an  individualistic  era.  But  the 
next  stage  begins  to  give  evidence  of  organization 
for  the  purposes  of  cooperation  and  formal  govern 
ment,  and  Roosevelt's  stirring  story  sweeps  us 
along  until  we  come  to  the  little  group  which  started 
westward  from  the  Carolinas  in  1771  under  the 
leadership  of  Robertson  and  took  up  their  resi 
dence  on  the  Watauga. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  some  form  of  govern 
ment  must  be  established,  so  it  was  determined  to 
adopt  a  few  simple  rules  of  action  which  were  ac 
cordingly  drawn  up  and  knov/n  as  the  Articles  of 
the  Watauga  Association.  There,  along  the  head 
waters  of  the  Tennessee,  they  were  the  first  men  of 
American  birth  to  establish  on  this  continent  a 
free  and  independent  community.  To  describe  this 
association  briefly,  it  appears  that  the  freemen  of 
each  little  group  of  block  houses  which  could  be 
looked  upon  as  a  center  of  a  community  of  interest 
sent  a  member  to  the  first  meeting  of  their  legis 
lature.  There  were  thirteen  representatives  who 
elected  five  to  form  a  court. 

Let  Roosevelt  finish  his  story:  "Thus  the  Watauga 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    21 

folk  were  the  first  Americans  who,  as  a  separate 
body,  moved  into  the  wilderness  to  hew  out  dwellings 
for  themselves  and  their  children,  trusting  only  to 
their  own  shrewd  heads,  stout  hearts,  and  strong 
arms,  unhelped  and  unhampered  by  the  power 
nominally  their  sovereign.  They  built  up  a  com 
monwealth  which  had  many  successors;  they  showed 
that  the  frontiersmen  could  do  their  work  unas 
sisted;  for  they  not  only  proved  that  they  were 
made  of  stuff  stern  enough  to  hold  its  own  against 
outside  pressure  of  any  sort,  but  they  also  made  it 
evident  that  having  won  the  land  they  were  com 
petent  to  govern  both  it  and  themselves.  They 
were  the  first  to  do  what  the  whole  nation  has  since 
done.  It  has  often  been  said  that  we  owe  all  our 
success  to  our  surroundings;  that  any  race  with 
our  opportunities  could  have  done  as  well  as  we 
have  done.  Undoubtedly  our  opportunities  have 
been  great;  undoubtedly  we  have  often  and  la 
mentably  failed  in  taking  advantage  of  them. 
But  what  nation  ever  has  done  all  that  was  pos 
sible  with  the  chances  offered  it?  The  Spaniards, 
the  Portuguese,  and  the  French  (in  America),  not 
to  speak  of  the  Russians  in  Siberia,  have  all  en 
joyed,  and  yet  have  failed  to  make  good  use  of,  the 
same  advantages  which  we  have  turned  to  good 
account.  The  truth  is,  that  in  starting  a  new  nation 
in  a  new  country,  as  we  have  done,  while  there  are 
exceptional  chances  to  be  taken  advantage  of,  there 
are  also  exceptional  dangers  and  difficulties  to  be 


22  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

overcome.  None  but  heroes  can  succeed  wholly 
in  the  work.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  us  at  times  to 
compare  what  we  have  done  with  what  we  could 
have  done,  had  we  been  better  and  wiser;  it  may 
make  us  try  in  the  future  to  raise  our  abilities  to 
the  level  of  our  opportunities.  Looked  at  abso 
lutely,  we  must  frankly  acknowledge  that  we  have 
fallen  very  far  short  indeed  of  the  high  ideal  we 
should  have  reached.  Looked  at  relatively,  it  must 
also  be  said  that  we  have  done  better  than  any 
other  nation  or  race  working  under  our  conditions.  ' 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  have  in  this 
frontier  tradition  an  element  which  is  definite  and 
pervasive  in  the  shaping  of  American  character. 
The  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  it  are  capable  of 
daily  application.  Its  vigor  and  creative  energy 
are  evident  everywhere  in  the  life  and  spirit  of 
our  people.  The  main  purpose  of  this  book  is  to 
point  out  how  this  great  heritage  may  invigorate 
our  work  and  keep  fresh  our  inherent  idealism. 
But  we  need,  first  of  all,  to  fix  in  our  minds  a  clear 
idea  of  the  impulses  underlying  the  frontier  tradi 
tions,  and  to  make  better  use  of  them  because  of 
our  more  definite  realization  of  their  origin  and 
potentialities.  Without  a  full  appreciation  of  these 
initial  impulses  to  our  greatness  as  a  people  there 
can  be  no  thorough  understanding  of  true  Ameri 
canism.  It  will  be  well  then  to  pursue  the  analysis 
of  Americanism  from  several  viewpoints. 
\  It  may  seem  a  far  cry  from  the  life  of  the  back- 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER     23 

woodsman  to  the  writings  of  a  young  scholar 
at  Princeton  University;  but  it  is  an  interesting 
fact  that  in  his  "  Division  and  Reunion,"  written 
in  1892,  the  President  of  Princeton  showed  a 
deep  feeling  for  the  significance  of  the  America 
west  of  the  Alleghanies.  At  that  time  Mr.  Wilson 
said,  "  It  was  an  awkward,  cumbersome  business  to 
subdue  a  continent  in  such  wise  —  hard  to  plan 
and  very  likely  impossible  to  execute.  Under 
such  circumstances  nature  was  much  bigger  and 
stronger  than  man.  She  would  suffer  no  sudden 
highways  to  be  thrown  across  her  spaces;  she 
abated  not  an  inch  of  her  mountains,  compromised 
not  a  foot  of  her  forests.  Still,  she  did  not  daunt 
the  designs  of  the  new  nation  born  on  the  sea-edge 
of  her  wilds.  Here  is  the  secret,  —  a  secret  so 
open  it  would  seem,  as  to  baffle  the  penetration  of 
none,  —  which  many  witnesses  of  the  .  material 
growth  and  territorial  expansion  of  the  United 
States  have  strangely  failed  to  divine.  The  history 
of  the  country  and  the  ambitions  of  its  people  have 
been  deemed  both  sordid  and  mean,  inspired  by 
nothing  better  than  a  desire  for  the  gross  comforts 
of  material  abundance;  and  it  has  been  pronounced 
grotesque  that  mere  bigness  and  wealth  should  be 
put  forward  as  the  most  prominent  grounds  for  the 
boast  of  greatness.  The  obvious  fact  is  that  for 
the  creation  of  the  nation  the  conquest  of  her  proper 
territory  from  Nature  was  first  necessary;  and  this 
taskj  which  is  hardly  yet  completed,  has  been 


24  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

idealized  in  the  popular  mind.  A  bold  race  has 
derived  inspiration  from  the  size,  the  difficulty, 
the  danger  of  the  task. 

"Expansion  has  meant  nationalization;  national 
ization  has  meant  strength  and  elevation  of  view. 

'Be  strong-backed,  brown-handed,  upright  as 

your  pines, 
By  the  scale  of  the  hemisphere  shape  your 

designs/ 

is  the  spirited  command  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
great  physical  undertaking  upon  which  political 
success  was  conditioned." 

We  see  spread  before  us  here  something  new  in 
history:  a  selected  group  of  people  from  a  variety 
of  stocks,  pushing  out  into  a  rich,  continental  area, 
completely  shaking  off  all  the  traditions  of  caste 
and  class  distinction  which  in  their  European 
homes  had  seemed  bred  into  the  very  marrow  of  their 
bones,  a  group  practically  free  from  all  governmental 
restraint  except  such  as  they  voluntarily  set  up  for 
their  own  protection  and  convenience,  living  in  an 
atmosphere  dominated  preeminently  by  the  one 
great  demand  of  self-preservation.  We  begin  to 
distinguish,  as  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  the 
American  spirit,  worked  into  its  fabric  during  the 
susceptible  years  of  its  youth,  the  characteristic 
of  confidence  in  itself;  and  we  have  the  emphasis 
on  material  things  which  grew  out  of  a  life  close  to 
nature,  when  almost  every  waking  moment  of  the 
time  and  energy  of  each  individual  had  to  be  de- 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    25 

voted  to  material  things  if  existence  was  to  be 
maintained. 

Now  comes  a  vital  point.  It  is  clear,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  brief  outline  of  the  Watauga  Associa 
tion,  that  in  the  earliest  days  something  more  than 
self-confidence  and  attention  to  material  things  came 
out  of  this  laboratory  of  freedom.  An  analysis 
of  some  of  these  traits  is  made  by  Professor  Max 
Farrand  in  his  excellent  brief  summary  of  American 
history,  "The  Development  of  the  United  States." 
He  says:  "At  the  basis  lay  the  qualities  of  bravery, 
resourcefulness  and  self-reliance  which  were  in 
dispensable  to  the  maintenance  of  life  on  the  frontier, 
and  all  America  passed  through  the  frontier  stage. 
Adaptability  was  a  product  rather  than  an  original 
quality.  .  .  .  One  of  the  shrewdest  character 
izations  ever  made  was  that  an  American  likes  better 
than  anything  else  to  make  a  dollar  where  no  one 
else  has  seen  the  chance  or  where  somebody  else 
has  failed.  ...  It  is  easy  to  see  how  out  of  the 
conditions  existing  other  traits  developed  such  as 
cheerfulness,  good  nature,  generosity,  and  above  all, 
a  deeply  rooted  belief  in  an  opportunity  for  every 
man,  a  conviction  which  ultimately  led  to  the 
principle  of  fair  play  and  the  doctrine  of  the  square 
deal. 

"Still  other  characteristics  sprang  from  the  youth- 
fulness  of  the  people.  ...  A  sense  of  humor  is 
conspicuous  in  American  temperament,  and  whether 
it  comes  from  an  appreciation  of  the  incongruous  or 


26  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

from  scorn  of  any  lack  of  adaptability,  from  a 
'magnificent  spirit  of  exaggeration/  from  a  surplus 
of  nervous  energy  seeking  relief,  or  from  any  other 
of  the  numerous  explanations,  the  necessary  con 
ditions  seemed  to  exist  in  the  new  country." 

The  youthfulness  of  point  of  view  is  particularly 
worthy  of  emphasis.  In  a  life  which  involved  the 
stimulus  of  a  constant  renewal  of  scene  and  effort, 
we  have  seen  that  Washington  and  Lincoln  had 
both  won  their  spurs  as  commanders  of  troops  at 
the  age  of  twenty-two.  Alexander  Hamilton  was 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  at  twenty-five.  Thomas 
Jefferson  was  Governor  of  Virginia  at  thirty-six. 
Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a  member  of  the  New 
York  Legislature  at  twenty-eight.  There  is  in  this 
long  record  of  public  service  by  youthful  men,  and 
an  equal  number  of  men  mature  in  years  but  young 
in  spirit,  an  interesting  emphasis  upon  the  joy  of 
life  which  everyone  feels  who  comes  in  contact  with 
American  affairs.  There  is  still  notable  among  us 
a  considerable  absence  of  the  sophistication  which 
centuries  of  struggle  and  tragedy  have  left  as  an 
inheritance  to  the  people  of  many  countries.  There 
goes  with  this  a  whole-hearted  love  of  play  and  a 
considerable  lack  of  self-consciousness.  The  crowd 
at  a  country  fair,  at  a  base-ball  or  foot-ball  game,, 
in  any  one  of  a  thousand  American  communities, 
the  enthusiasm  of  great  accomplishment  of  the  part 
of  men  in  high  position,  the  quick  reaction  to  gen 
erous  impulse,  all  of  which  one  finds  to  a  notable 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    27 

extent  in  America,  are  some  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  nation  and  its  people.  They  have  their 
origin  in  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  frontier. 

Is  it  not  evident  that  the  frontier  carries  a  great 
inspiration  lesson  for  the  present  generation?  The 
last  material  frontier  has  been  conquered  and  the 
forests  have  all  been  explored.  The  waste  lands  are 
all  charted  and  crossed  by  countless  trails,  and 
simply  await  the  necessities  of  our  expanding  civili 
zation  to  be  subdued  by  the  mechanical  processes 
of  irrigation.  Nevertheless,  America  has  just  begun 
to  face  the  test  of  her  strength.  A  nation  of  a  few 
millions  of  people  on  the  Atlantic  coast  has  expanded 
into  more  than  a  hundred  millions,  and  the  very 
problems  of  existence  are  again,  as  in  the  frontier 
day,  taxing  to  the  utmost  the  ingenuity  and  the 
self-reliance  of  our  leaders.  Was  there  ever  a  time 
when  self-reliance  was  more  needed?  Are  not 
cheerfulness  and  the  American  sense  of  humor  de 
manded?  Was  there  ever  an  era  in  which  a  con 
tinental  viewpoint,  a  firm  reliance  upon  the  orderly 
processes  of  democracy,  and  a  high  idealism  were 
more  vital? 

We  have  just  stood  before  the  world  in  a  great 
war  as  the  advocates  of  straightforwardness  and 
fair  dealing.  The  relations  between  man  and  man 
which  were  reduced  to  their  lowest  terms  in  the 
hard  school  of  the  frontier,  the  political  practice  of 
going  straight  to  the  point,  free  of  all  diplomatic 
subterfuge,  which  characterized  the  public  life  of 


28  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  frontier's  greatest  son,  Abraham  Lincoln,  which 
characterized  the  diplomacy  of  Roosevelt,  were 
again  set  before  the  world  in  the  war  against  Ger 
many,  when  we  advocated  the  rights  of  small 
nations  to  determine  the  life  they  should  lead. 
Among  the  diplomatic  messages  of  the  great  war 
some  of  the  American  notes  stand  out  as  profoundly 
characteristic  of  the  American  spirit,  and  they  are 
characteristic,  not  because  of  anything  new  in  them, 
but  because  their  roots  lie  back  in  the  days  when 
our  people  were  fighting  out  their  destiny  across  a 
great  continent.  "As  we  turn  from  the  task  of  the 
first  rough  conquest  of  the  continent  there  lies  be 
fore  us  a  whole  wealth  of  unexploited  resources  in 
the  realm  of  the  spirit." 

It  is  unfortunately  true  that  in  the  age  we  live 
in,  the  formal  religion  of  many  people  is  dormant; 
yet  the  human  tendency  to  set  up  something  worthy 
of  reverence,  something  consecrated,  something 
wTorshipful,  is  partly  satisfied  by  their  love  of  de 
mocracy.  A  thousand  people  may  give  a  thousand 
definitions  of  what  democracy  really  means,  but 
fundamentally  in  this  country  there  is  a  long  tradi 
tion  of  deep  respect  for  the  orderly  processes  of 
legislation,  for  the  give  and  take  of  discussion  and 
disagreement  over  a  daily  succession  of  theories  and 
suggested  reforms,  all  finally  resulting  in  putting  it 
to  a  vote,  announcing  the  awesome  words,  "The 
motion  is  carried,"  and  turning  to  the  next  business. 

It  is  a  feature  of  this  method  of  action  that  it  has 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    29 

behind  it  the  ability  to  back  up  words  with  deeds. 
This  is  essential.  But  the  willingness  in  an  ex 
tremity  to  fight  for  principles  which  are  believed  to 
be  sound,  the  early  frontier  spirit  of  bravado,  pos 
sibly  the  over-readiness  to  fight,  all  these  would 
have  but  little  in  them  of  truth  for  our  present  day 
and  generation  unless  out  of  the  strength  of  the 
physical  frontier  had  quickly  developed  the  principle 
that  right  is  mighty  and  that  the  eternal  truth  of 
things  is  not  conclusively  proved  by  the  strong  man 
knocking  the  weaker  man  to  the  ground  and  beat 
ing  him  into  unconsciousness.  Those  in  whose  con 
ception  the  democratic  ideal  is  strongest  have  a 
firm  conviction  that  in  America  raw  force  is  just 
a  little  better  under  control  than  it  is  in  some 
corners  of  the  world,  that  among  us,  self-reliant 
men  are  just  a  little  more  inclined  to  do  the 
right  thing  because  it  is  right  and  not  because 
they  are  required  to  do  it  by  law  or  by  force. 
It  is  an  open  question  how  many  more  lynchings 
and  murders  and  riots  and  other  kinds  of  mob 
violence  we  must  submit  to  before  we  reach  an  era 
in  which  the  faith  of  these  idealists  of  democracy 
may  be  fully  justified.  But  let  it  be  hoped  that 
those  who  believe  that  the  minds  of  Americans  can 
permanently  be  shaped  by  violence  will  give  thought 
before  it  is  too  late  to  the  enthusiasm,  and  even  the 
fanaticism,  that  so  often  underlie  a  conviction  as 
closely  akin  to  religion  as  is  our  devotion  to  tradi 
tional  American  democracy.  Let  those  persons  who 


30  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

believe  they  can  substitute  a  rule  of  might  for  a 
rule  of  reason  beware  of  wounding  public  sentiment 
too  far,  lest  a  red  flame  flash  out  of  the  pioneer 
American  heart  and  wholly  consume  them.  Ameri 
can  democracy  is  quite  as  capable  of  inspiring  end 
less  enthusiasm  and  devotion  as  are  the  systems 
which  would  destroy  it. 

The  rugged  and  simple  Americanism  of  the 
frontier,  expressing  itself  in  practical  politics,  is 
exemplified  in  the  life  and  thought  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  In  him  we  feel  a  deep  love  of  the  essence 
of  America  which  we  all  fail  to  keep  before  us  as 
vividly  as  we  might.  Often  we  do  not  appreciate 
it  because  we  are  so  close  to  it  that  we  see  the  im 
perfections  more  vividly  than  we  do  the  broad, 
underlying  principles  which  make  America  what  it 
is  and  what  it  signifies  to  the  outside  world.  It 
is  a  world  spirit.  It  stands  vividly  and  compellingly 
before  the  immigrant  who  leaves  his  home  and 
crosses  a  continent  and  an  ocean  to  become  part  of 
it.  This  subtle  force  has  never  been  described 
better  than  by  Lord  Charnwood  in  his  splendid 
"Life  of  Lincoln"  where,  in  speaking  of  the  Civil 
War,  he  says,  "It  must  never  be  forgotten,  if  we 
wish  to  enter  into  the  spirit  which  sustained  the 
North  in  its  struggle,  that  loyalty  for  union  had  a 
larger  aspect  than  that  of  mere  allegiance  to  a 
particular  authority.  Vividly  present  to  the  mind 
of  some  few,  vaguely  but  honestly  present  to  the 
mind  of  a  great  multitude,  was  the  sense  that  even 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    31 

had  slavery  not  entered  into  the  question,  a  larger 
cause  than  that  of  their  recent  Union  was  bound 
up  in  the  issues  of  the  war.  The  Government  of 
the  United  States  had  been  the  first  and  most 
famous  attempt  in  a  great  modern  country  to  secure 
government  by  the  will  of  a  mass  of  the  people. 
If,  in  this  crucial  instance,  such  a  government  were 
soon  to  be  intolerably  weak,  if  it  was  found  to  be 
at  the  mercy  of  the  first  powerful  minority  which 
seized  a  worked-up  occasion  to  rebel,  what  they  had 
learned  to  think  the  most  powerful  agency  for  the 
uplifting  of  man  everywhere  would,  for  ages  to  come, 
have  proved  a  failure." 

Our  race  has  not  declined.  The  war  gave  evidence 
of  the  splendid  manhood,  equal  to  any  in  the  world, 
available  to  fight  when  fight  we  must.  But  rarely, 
we  hope,  will  this  generation  or  its  successors  be 
called  upon  to  muster  its  full  physical  strength  to 
confront  in  arms  the  problems  which  oppress  the 
world.  Here  at  home  the  physical  frontiers  are  gone. 
The  forests  which  remain  are  scarcely  an  adequate 
playground  for  the  teeming  millions  of  today.  But 
the  great  frontier  of  American  character,  the  endless 
succession  of  frontiers  of  our  own  time,  all  men  must 
recognize.  The  ancient  strength  is  still  at  the 
heart  of  our  people.  Face  to  face  with  a  new  wilder 
ness  of  trackless  problems  of  the  spirit,  confronted  by 
the  task  of  blazing  trails  through  uncharted  regions, 
social,  industrial,  financial,  political,  we  shall  show 
the  same  skill,  the  same  patience  and  adaptability, 


32  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  same  self-confidence  which  characterized  the  men 
who  made  America.  The  greatest  inheritance  of  a 
man  or  woman  in  the  United  States  is  the  conscious 
ness  of  the  victories  of  the  men  and  women  who 
went  before. 

If  sojourners  from  overseas  are  working  among  us 
to  perpetuate  other  traditions,  we  must  spare  no 
pains  to  teach  them  our  own.  We  must  instil  into 
them  the  enthusiasm  for  the  ideals  and  traditions 
which  win  from  us  not  the  tribute  of  lip  service 
but  the  changeless  devotion  which  can  be  inspired 
only  by  those  things  which  are  worthy  and  of  good 
report;  we  must  teach  the  new  Americans  an  un 
conquerable  faith,  not  in  the  frozen  and  inelastic 
detail  of  institutions,  but  in  the  vigorous,  youthful 
heart  of  America.  In  the  great  days,  the  strenuous 
and  trying  days,  which  lie  ahead,  we  may  well  look 
upon  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women  who  blazed 
the  way  for  us;  we  can  throw  back  our  shoulders 
and  hold  up  our  heads  and  look  the  world  in  the 
eye  with  pride  because  we  are  the  heirs  of  the  spirit 
of  the  frontier,  the  inheritors  of  the  tradition  of 
those  men  and  women  who,  being  thrown  upon 
their  own  resources  in  a  vast  continental  wilderness, 
instead  of  degenerating  into  the  savagery  which 
surrounded  them,  laid  the  foundations  of  the  greatest 
republic  on  any  continent. 

Throughout  our  entire  history  there  is  the  ring  of 
necessary  work  triumphantly  done,  of  creative  en 
thusiasm,  of  the  energies  of  men  brought  to  bear 


FRONTIER  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER    33 

upon  generations  of  effort  which  to  another  race 
might  have  seemed  only  impossible  drudgery.  It  is 
the  frontier  spirit  which  Roosevelt  knew  so  well.  It 
is  the  spirit  interpreted  in  the  sentences  of  Emerson 
Hough:  "The  frontier!  there  is  no  word  in  the 
English  language  more  stirring,  more  intimate,  or 
more  beloved.  ...  It  carries  all  of  the  old  Saxon 
command,  *  Forward.'  It  means  all  that  America 
ever  meant.  It  means  the  old  hope  of  a  real  personal 
liberty,  and  yet  a  real  human  advance  in  character 
and  achievement.  To  a  genuine  American  it  is  the 
dearest  wrord  in  all  the  world. 

"The  fascination  of  the  frontier  has  ever  been 
and  is  an  undying  thing.  Adventure  's  the  meat  of 
the  strong  men  who  have  built  the  world  for  those 
more  timid.  Adventure  and  the  frontier  are  one 
and  inseparable.  They  suggest  strength,  courage, 
hardihood  —  qualities  beloved  in  men  since  the 
world  began,  qualities  which  are  the  very  soul  of 
the  United  States,  itself  an  experiment,  an  adventure, 
a  risk  accepted.  .  .  .  We  had  our  frontier.  We 
shall  do  ill  indeed  if  we  forget  and  abandon  its 
dreams." 

And  we  still  have  our  frontier.  It  is  a  frontier 
industrial,  financial,  commercial,  political,  social, 
educational,  artistic,  diplomatic,  religious.  Let 
us  not  forget  that  the  old  frontier  constantly 
presented  problems  without  precedent.  It  seemed 
to  be  impossible  of  conquest  and  settlement.  But 
settled  it  was.  If  we  do  not  "forget  and  abandon 


34  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

its  strong  lessons,  its  great  hopes,  its  splendid 
dreams,"  if  we  do  not  lose  our  grasp  upon  its  vigor 
and  common  sense,  if  we  do  not  forsake  our  price 
less  heritage  of  a  sense  of  humor,  we  shall  find  that 
we  are  measurably  nearer  the  settlement  of  the  new 
wilderness,  that  we  are  steadily  pushing  forward  the 
fighting  line  of  the  New  Frontier. 


THE  LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA 

OCCASIONALLY  the  world  produces  a  man  who  does 
not  need  to  read  history.  He  is  history.  Like  the 
youth  in  the  essay  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  "In 
the  sleeping  wilderness,  he  has  read  the  story  of  the 
Emperor,  Charles  the  Fifth,  until  his  fancy  has 
brought  home  to  the  surrounding  woods  the  faint 
roar  of  cannonades  in  the  Milanese,  and  marches 
in  Germany.  He  is  curious  concerning  that  man's 
day.  What  filled  it  ?  The  crowded  orders,  the  stern 
decisions,  the  foreign  dispatches,  the  Castillian 
etiquette?  The  soul  answers  —  Behold  his  day  here! 
In  the  sighing  of  these  woods,  in  the  quiet  of  these 
gray  fields,  in  the  cool  breeze  that  sings  out  of  these 
northern  mountains;  in  the  workmen,  the  boys,  the 
maidens  you  meet,  —  in  the  hopes  of  the  morning, 
the  ennui  of  noon,  and  sauntering  of  the  afternoon; 
in  the  disquieting  comparisons;  in  the  regrets  at 
want  of  vigor;  in  the  great  idea  and  the  puny  execu 
tion,  —  behold  Charles  the  Fifth's  day;  another, 
yet  the  same;  behold  Chatham's,  Hampden's, 
Bayard's,  Alfred's,  Scipio's,  Pericles 's  day, —  day 
of  all  that  are  born  of  women.  The  difference  of 
circumstance  is  merely  costume.  I  am  tasting  the 

35 


36  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

self-same  life,  —  its  sweetness,  its  greatness,  its 
pain,  which  I  so  admire  in  other  men.  Do  not 
foolishly  ask  of  the  inscrutable,  obliterated  past  what 
it  cannot  tell,  —  the  details  of  that  nature,  of  that 
day,  called  Byron  or  Burke;  —  but  ask  it  of  the 
enveloping  Now  ...  Be  lord  of  a  day,  and  you 
can  put  up  your  history  books." 

Men  and  women,  not  books,  make  history.  Re 
corded  history  is  largely  the  story  of  human  achieve 
ments  and  failures.  It  has  been  said  that  in  the 
biographies  of  its  men  and  women  may  be  read  all 
that  is  essential  in  the  chronicles  of  a  nation. 

And  yet  we  are  the  product  of  the  past.  No  great 
race  can  be  unmindful  of  the  history  of  its  founders. 
What  Emerson  dreamed,  what  Lincoln  suffered, 
what  Roosevelt  did,  all  have  a  bearing  on  what  we 
are  and  what  we  do  today.  All  that  the  pioneers 
accomplished  is  a  precious  and  inspiring  heritage  for 
the  men  and  women  of  our  own  time.  The  spirit 
that  conquered  a  continent  must  never  die. 

We  cannot  appreciate  this  spirit  fully  unless  we 
understand  it  clearly.  We  have  not  allowed  the 
fame  of  our  great  men  to  grow  dim;  but  have  we 
not  been  satisfied  in  this  generation  with  too  super 
ficial  a  view  of  those  whose  lives  embody  the  living 
fire  of  liberty  and  democracy  and  opportunity? 
Have  we  not,  in  our  busy  times,  inclined  too  much 
to  use  the  names  of  Jefferson  and  Washington  and 
Lincoln  as  connoting  abstract  patriotic  sentiments, 
and  largely  failed  to  clothe  these  men  with  red- 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      37 

blooded  personal  attributes?     It  will  be  helpful  to 
get  acquainted  with  some  of  our  forefathers. 

This  is,  perhaps,  reason  enough  for  advocating  a 
wider  reading  of  American  history  and  biography. 
But  it  is  not  the  primary  reason  which  it  is  desired 
to  emphasize  in  these  pages.  The  first  reason  for 
reading  the  history  of  the  United  States  is  because 
of  its  absorbing  interest.  This  interest  lies  not  only 
in  its  variety  and  sweep  and  human  vigor,  but 
particularly  for  Americans  in  the  fact  that  it  deals 
with  the  actions  of  men  who  met,  in  a  variety  of 
forms,  problems  similar  to  those  which  confront  us 
in  our  own  day, 

It  may  be  offered  as  a  general  assertion  that  the 
average  mature  American  of  today  knows  too  little 
about  the  history  of  his  own  country.  This  is  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  we  have  been  too  busy  to  be  very 
analytical  about  ourselves  or  our  own  past  doings, 
and  it  is  perhaps  due  even  more  to  the  fact  that 
only  recently  have  we  become  of  age.  For  perhaps 
two  hundred  years  after  the  settlement  of  America, 
European  standards  and  traditions  had  their  way 
with  us,  and  in  a  work-a-day  country  where  practical 
matters  were  the  most  important  consideration,  the 
few  men  who  had  time  to  read  or  write  history 
turned  their  attention  as  a  sort  of  poetic  relief  to 
the  highly  colored  and  melodramatic  phases  of  Euro 
pean  progress.  Many  Americans  wrote  brilliantly 
in  their  chosen  fields.  Prescott  wras  absorbed  by 
the  Spanish  tradition.  He  has  left  us  a  vivid  charac- 


38  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

terization  of  the  Spanish  Court  in  its  most  brilliant 
days;  but  he  has  touched  upon  America  only  in 
connection  with  the  romantic  episodes  surrounding 
the  conquests  of  Cortez  and  Pizarro  to  the  south 
ward.  Washington  Irving  felt  the  lure  of  Spain. 
Motley,  with  a  firm  conviction  that  everything 
connected  with  republican  endeavor  must  be  sound 
and  just,  left  us  an  entertaining  if  somewhat  preju 
diced  account  of  the  rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 

Nor  was  this  alien  tendency  due  alone  to  the  fact 
that  European  events  were  superficially  more  bril 
liant.  It  was  due  partly  to  an  historical  tradition 
which  laid  the  greatest  possible  emphasis  upon  con 
ventional,  political  and  military  developments,  in 
comparison  with  which,  of  course,  the  little  contests 
connected  with  the  foundation  and  development  of 
the  United  States  seemed  insignificant.  It  is  only 
in  our  own  time  that  writers  of  history  are  giving 
due  credit  to  the  progress  of  human  character.  Pro 
fessor  W.  C.  Abbott  of  Yale,  in  his  "Expansion  of 
Europe"  has  set  forth  this  new  point  of  view  as 
brilliantly  as  any  modern  writer.  All  through  his 
two  strikingly  vivid  volumes  he  lays  emphasis  upon 
history  as  a  chronicle  of  the  development  of  the 
mind  of  man,  as  a  record  of  the  advance  of  living 
and  thinking  men  and  women,  rather  than  as  a 
bluebook  of  dynastic  quarrels  and  royal  marriages. 
"If  there  is  one  characteristic  of  European  peoples," 
he  says,  "more  extraordinary  than  another  in  the 
field  of  intellect,  it  is  the  amazing  discrepancy  be- 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      39 

tween  their  actual  and  their  recorded  history.  Had 
their  development  been  confined  to  those  concerns 
which  filled  their  annals  to  the  exclusion  of  almost 
every  other  topic  —  the  ambitions  and  activities  of 
their  rulers,  war  and  diplomacy  —  the  story  of  the 
three  hundred  years  which  culminated  in  the  careers 
of  Louis  XIV  and  Charles  XII  would  resemble 
nothing  so  much  as  the  accounts  of  the  rise  and  fall 
of  Tartar  and  Zulu  tribes;  the  exploits  of  Jenghiz 
Khan  and  Timur  the  Lame;  of  Chaka  and  Dingaan. 
Where  there  are  a  score  of  volumes  on  the  elaborate 
and,  for  the  most  part,  futile  intrigues  over  the  dis 
position  of  the  inheritance  of  Charles  II  of  Spain, 
there  is  scarcely  one  on  the  evolution,  in  the  same 
period,  of  the  mightiest  agent  of  the  modern  world, 
the  steam  engine.  Where  there  are  a  hundred 
narratives  of  the  battles  of  the  wars  with  which 
the  Eighteenth  Century  began,  there  is  hardly  to 
be  found  a  tolerable  account  of  that  economic 
revolution  which  then  commenced  to  alter  the  whole 
basis  of  civilized  society." 

'  He  refers  also  to  the  progress  of  chemistry,  par 
ticularly  the  work  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  of  the  Swedish  pharmacist  Scheele,  whose 
discoveries  included  the  organic  acids,  such  as 
tartaric,  oxalic,  citric,  and  gallic;  manganese, 
chlorine,  baryta;  and  estimates  of  the  proportion  of 
oxygen  in  the  air.  "With  this  work  modern  chemis 
try  may  be  said  to  begin.  And  while  it  is  futile  to 
make  the  trite  moral  comparison  between  the  labors 


4o  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  such  men  as  these  and  the  spectacular  achieve 
ments  of  captains  and  kings,  in  their  respective 
contributions  to  the  comfort  and  capacity  of  the 
race,  one  may  at  least  claim  a  place  for  them  in  the 
history  of  Europe  beside  the  mistresses  of  Louis  XV 
or  even  the  conquests  of  the  great  Frederick." 

Professor  Abbott  does  not  advocate  the  changing 
of  human  nature.  The  vividness  and  sympathy 
with  which  he  writes  prove  beyond  peradventure 
that  he  has  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  love  in  every 
man  of  a  good  story  —  of  great  battles  lost  and  won, 
of  epic  chronicles  of  courage  and  of  daring.  But  he 
believes  that  modern  history  has  a  responsibility  in 
the  way  of  clarifying  the  fundamental  significance 
of  the  best  experience  of  the  race  so  that  this  sig 
nificance  may  be  understood  by  men  who  are  not 
engaged  primarily  in  leading  great  armies  in  the 
field  of  battle  but,  on  the  contrary,  are  devoting 
most  of  their  time  to  leading  men  and  women  in 
the  no  less  difficult  fields  of  action  which  charac 
terize  modern  life  in  times  of  peace.  In  setting  forth 
this  view,  one  of  the  best  things  that  can  be  said 
about  Professor  Abbott  is  that  he  has  demonstrated 
not  only  the  possibility,  but  also  the  brilliant  realiza 
tion,  of  just  what  he  advocates  in  principle.  The 
following  paragraph  will  summarize  his  views  on 
this  point  and  will  perhaps  indicate  his  equipment 
as  a  representative  of  the  modern  school  of  American 
writers  of  history  whose  work  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
read. 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA     41 

"To  most  men  no  literary  art  can  make  (the 
chronicles  of  artists,  inventors  and  thinkers)  com 
parable  in  interest  with  the  dramatic  vividness  of 
battles  lost  and  won,  of  great  designs  carried  to 
victory  or  to  defeat,  of  the  unending  human  comedy 
and  tragedy  whose  conflicts  form  the  undying 
theme  of  human  interest.  The  study  can  never 
compete  with  the  field  of  battle  as  the  subject  of 
history.  Yet,  in  a  wider  view,  the  multitudinous 
activities  of  these  untitled  leaders  in  the  common 
cause  of  humanity,  engaged  in  this  great  conflict 
with  the  forces  of  ignorance  and  the  dark,  the 
struggle  of  these  champions  of  liberty  with  those  of 
intrenched  dogma  and  autocracy  and  these  dis 
coverers  of  new  knowledge  and  new  power,  take  on 
an  aspect  no  less  dramatic  and  far  more  important 
to  the  cause  of  progress  than  all  the  glittering 
triumphs  of  statesmen  and  generals.  For  the  cause 
which  they  championed,  the  interest  which  they 
served,  are  those  which  went  to  make  the  world  we 
call  our  own.  .  .  .  And  in  the  fields  of  knowledge 
and  capacity,  popular  government  and  freedom  of 
thought,  these  pioneers  of  the  forces  of  light  drove 
their  mines  deep  under  that  stately  edifice  of  worldly 
power  which,  at  the  height  of  his  glory,  the  Grand 
Monarque  was  raising  before  the  eyes  of  men.  That 
edifice  was  to  endure  scarcely  a  century.  To  its 
fall,  as  to  the  structure  which  arose  in  its  place,  it 
was  the  glory  of  these  leaders  of  thought  to  con 
tribute;  and  from  their  efforts  rather  than  from  the 


42  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

achievements  of  those  who  filled  the  world's  eye, 
came  the  next  advance  in  the  real  progress  of  man 
kind." 

The  new  American  history,  therefore,  takes  into 
account  many  developments  and  movements  of  the 
human  race  which  are  attended  perhaps  with  less  of 
the  colorful  and  melodramatic  than  one  finds  in  the 
average  page  of  European  history.  The  contrast 
is  something  like  that  between  the  pageantry  and 
tinsel  of  a  highly  staged  melodrama  and  the  sim 
plicity  of  a  Ben  Greet  production  of  Shakespeare. 
Or  perhaps,  for  Americans  it  might  be  better  to 
contrast  the  shock  and  color  of  a  conflict  between 
a  field  of  men  in  armor,  with  their  vast  array  of 
heraldic  standards  and  burnished  steel  flashing  in 
the  sun,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  quiet,  stealthy 
gray-brown  progress  of  a  group  of  backwoodsmen 
trailing  through  the  forest  to  meet  a  band  of  Indians 
on  the  warpath;  or  more  recently,  the  men  in 
khaki  who  won  new  glory  for  the  name  "American" 
on  the  battlefields  of  France.  This  contrast  perhaps 
brings  out  as  well  as  anything  could  the  feeling  of 
the  lover  of  American  history  for  the  chronicles  of 
his  own  country.  He  feels  that,  after  all,  the  most 
interesting  story  is  the  one  which  touches  most 
frequently  the  springs  of  that  human  action  and 
human  feeling  which  we  ourselves  can  understand. 
He  believes  that  there  was  at  least  as  much  of 
poetry  and  fire  and  dramatic  colorfulness  in  the 
fighting  Americans  at  Belleau  Wood  as  there  was  in 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA     43 

the  gaily  decked  warriors  who  led  the  crusades  of 
other  days. 

But  there  is  another  point.  American  history  is 
the  history  of  our  own  people,  the  people  whose 
blood  runs  in  our  veins,  the  people  whose  actions 
and  reactions  have  shaped  our  own  life  and  character 
and  who  have  handed  down  to  us  an  atmosphere 
and  tradition  which,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  will  largely 
shape  our  attitude  toward  the  problems  of  the  future. 
It  is  true  that  the  leadership  of  today  must  face  a 
variety  of  problems,  national  and  international  in 
scope,  which  will  require  originality  of  treatment 
and  a  fresh  imagination;  but  certainly  this  leader 
ship  will  always  need  that  deep  and  permanent 
confidence  in  itself,  that  courage  and  conviction  in 
the  soundness  of  one's  country  and  its  people,  and 
the  tightness  of  its  manifest  destiny,  which  have 
their  roots  so  deep  in  the  heart  of  American  tradi 
tion.  We  have  happily  left  behind  us  the  time  when 
it  was  regarded  as  fashionable  to  entertain  a  certain 
condescension  toward  our  own  history. 

First  of  all  there  is  the  background.  American  his 
tory  is  not  an  isolated  growth,  but  a  chronicle  of  a 
portion  of  the  human  race;  and  just  as  the  American 
of  today  can  understand  himself  better  by  know 
ing  his  ancestors  of  the  past  two  centuries,  so  Ameri 
cans  of  all  times  may  gain  something  by  the  study 
of  the  history  of  other  peoples.  Probably  the  best 
brief  analysis  of  this  background  is  "The  Expansion 
of  Europe "  by  W.  C.  Abbott,  previously  referred 


44  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

to.  Dr.  Abbott,  as  an  American,  recognizes  fully 
the  significance  of  colonial  expansion  in  the  develop 
ment  of  the  modern  world  and  sets  forth  brilliantly 
the  influence  of  the  Age  of  Discovery  in  expanding 
the  thought  of  Europe,  and  laying  the  foundations 
upon  which  America  was  built.  The  early  history 
of  the  American  continent  starts  off  in  a  period  of 
the  affairs  of  the  world  which  has  no  superior  in 
romantic  interest.  The  stirrings  among  the  more 
liberal  spirits  of  Europe  following  the  enlightened 
days  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  the 
fascinating  and  almost  unbelievable  story  of  Marco 
Polo,  the  successful  series  of  great  adventures 
launched  under  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  which 
brought  the  East  in  touch  with  Europe  by  sea,  the 
addition  to  the  humdrum  daily  life  of  Europe  of 
articles  whose  very  name  is  the  fabric  of  romance, 
formed  a  lively  setting  for  the  discovery  of  the 
West  Indies  by  Columbus.  Columbus  was  moved 
by  a  desire  to  find  a  short  route  to  India  and  to 
bring  to  Spain  something  of  the  wealth  which  the 
Portuguese  ships  were  bringing  in  around  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  cloths  of  silk  and  gold,  ginger, 
Brazil  wood,  sandalwood,  diamonds  from  Golconda, 
rubies,  topaz,  sapphires  and  pearls,  rich  tapestries 
and  priceless  rugs. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  his  "Beginnings  of  the 
American  People"  Professor  Carl  Becker  has  painted 
a  picture  of  these  visions  of  wealth  and  luxury 
which  filled  the  minds  of  the  men  of  the  latter  part: 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA     45 

of  the  Fifteenth  Century:  "Walles  of  silver  and 
bulwarkes  or  towers  of  golde  .  .  .  lakes  full  of 
pearls,  Indian  princes  wearing  on  their  arms  'golde 
and  gems  worth  a  city's  ransome."  And  so  the 
story  goes  of  great  palaces  with  stairs  of  silver  and 
pavements  of  silver  and  gold,  and  walls  sealed  over 
with  plates  of  beaten  gold.  "In  contrast,"  he 
continues,  "how  small  and  inferior  is  Europe.  Here 
was  Eldorado,  a  symbol  of  all  external  and  objective 
values  which  so  fired  the  imagination  in  that  age  of 
discovery;  presenting  a  concrete  and  visualized 
goal,  .  .  .  attainable  not  by  contemplation  but  by 
active  endeavor;  fascinating  alike  to  the  merchant 
dreaming  of  profits,  to  the  statesman  intent  on 
conquest,  to  the  priest  in  search  of  martyrdom,  to 
the  adventurer  in  search  of  gold." 

This  was  indeed  a  Frontier!  Out  of  this  great 
stirring  came  pioneers.  Their  motives  ran  the 
gamut  from  the  deepest  spiritual  and  missionary 
purpose  to  the  most  unvarnished  and  insatiable 
greed;  but  underneath  it  all  there  stands  a  spirit 
of  adventure,  of  conquest,  even  of  idealism  which 
must  be  reckoned  with  among  the  elements  which 
went  into  the  shaping  of  what  we  know  as  the 
American  character.  It  was  this  spirit  that  became 
more  sharply  defined  in  the  days  of  Raleigh,  Drake 
and  Haw^kins  and  translated  itself  into  the  splendid 
national  spirit  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth. 

Alfred  Noyes  has  written,  "There  had  been 
legends  and  fairy  tales  of  happy  islands  where  men 


46  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

t 

walked  with  gods  as  with  their  elder  brothers,  but 
never  before  had  there  been  such  a  revolution  of 
miraculous  realities,  for  here  was  discovery  on  dis 
covery  of  unimagined  oceans  and  continents.  Veil 
after  veil  was  withdrawn  only  to  make  more  mys 
terious  the  veils  beyond.  It  was  as  if  men  were 
sailing  out  into  the  vastness  of  the  eternal. 

"Never  before  had  it  been  possible  to  sit  in  a 
tavern  and  hear  from  the  lips  of  those  who  had 
sailed  beyond  the  utmost  limits  of  the  old  world 
that  the  fairy  tales  were  infinitely  less  marvelous 
than  the  truth.  ...  It  was  as  if  men  had  suddenly 
discovered  that  their  earth  was  after  all,  not  a  thing 
of  make  believe,  a  dust-bin  of  customs  and  groups, 
but  a  real  island  floating  in  the  mystery  of  an 
infinite  heaven. 

"It  was  seriously  discussed  in  the  little  black 
taverns  'at  the  latter  end  of  a  sea  coal  fire'  whether 
men  might  not  sail  straight  up  to  the  gates  of 
Paradise.  The  Bible  and  the  map,  in  Hakluyt's 
phrase  'had  opened  doors  for  them.' 

"But  for  the  greater  intellects  of  the  time  it 
meant  an  even  more  vivid  revolution  of  the  isola 
tion  of  their  little  hearth  fires  in  an  unfathomable 
universe.  It  meant  a  spiritual  voyage  through 
an  immeasurable  abyss  of  darkness  in  quest  of  a 
spiritual  Cathay." 

This  stirring  spirit  sought  out  the  utmost  confines 
of  the  world  and  brought  our  own  continent  within 
the  knowledge  of  men.  It  is  well  in  estimating  this 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      47 

spirit  to  which  we  owe  so  much  in  the  development 
of  America,  to  realize  that  it  was  not  from  England 
alone  but  from  the  whole  of  Europe  that  we  in 
herited  the  tradition  of  restless  quests  for  new  worlds 
to  conquer.  While  the  early  permanent  colonies, 
which  won  their  independence  and  became  the 
United  States,  were  predominently  English  in  tradi 
tion,  and  while  we  have  the  right  to  claim  a  spiritual 
connection  with  some  of  the  proud  traditions  of 
British  constitutional  liberty,  we  have  seen  that  the 
men  who  developed  the  first  characteristically  Ameri 
can  spirit  were  not  the  colonial  Englishmen  of  the 
seacoast,  but  a  mixed  race.  It  is  significant  to 
bear  in  mind  also  that  the  great  number  of  early 
explorers  who  revealed  this  continent  to  the  im 
agination  of  Europe  were  largely  continental  Euro 
peans.  Columbus  was  a  Genoese  boy  who,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  declared  before  a  notary  that 
he  was  by  trade  a  weaver.  The  spirit  abroad  in  the 
land  developed  in  him,  living  as  he  did  in  a  famous 
maritime  city,  a  love  of  going  out  onto  the  sea  in 
ships,  and  on  one  of  these  trips  he  was  wrecked  and 
landed  on  the  coast  of  Portugal.  When  he  developed 
his  project  for  a  westward  voyage  he  tried  in  vain 
to  get  support  from  the  rulers  of  Portugal,  England 
and  France,  and  finally  after  a  persistency  which 
has  scarcely  ever  been  equaled,  he  managed  to 
sail  under  the  flag  of  Spain.  John  Cabot  was  a 
Genoese  boy  who  later  became  a  Venetian  citizen 
and  finally  sailed  under  the  English  flag;  but  in 


48  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

landing  on  the  coast  of  America  he  was  careful  to 
have  with  him  the  flag  of  Venice.  Amerigo  Vespucci 
was  a  Florentine  who  sailed  under  the  flag  of 
Portugal. 

The  pageantry  of  early  American  history  is 
distinctly  international  in  coloring.  It  is,  perhaps, 
hard  to  visualize  the  brilliant  band  of  men  in  full 
armor  with  all  the  colorful  standards  of  the  noble 
families  of  Spain  marching  across  the  present  State 
of  Georgia  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  under 
DeSoto.  It  is  perhaps  difficult  to  call  up  the  picture 
of  LaSalle,  the  French  courtier,  after  an  incredibly 
difficult  canoe  trip,  landing  among  the  Huron 
Indians  in  the  unbroken  wilderness  of  the  region  of 
the  Great  Lakes,  stepping  out  of  a  birch  canoe  in 
the  green  forest  among  naked  and  painted  savages, 
dressed  in  the  red  coat  and  breeches,  patent  leather 
shoes  with  silver  buckles,  lace  ruffles,  and  cocked 
hat  of  the  French  Court.  Or  to  come  down  to  more 
modern  times,  how  many  of  us  have  visualized  the 
battle  in  the  peaceful  mountains  of  Vermont  between 
the  rugged  American  hill  farmers  and  the  stolid 
Brunswickers;  or  the  battles  further  South  with  the 
well-drilled  troops  sent  over  by  the  Landgrave  of 
Hesse-Cassel?  Their  descendants  might  well  have 
inherited  a  memory  of  American  fighting  ability 
which  would  have  averted  some  of  the  surprise 
which  modern  Germans  felt  when  they  met  the 
descendants  of  Ethan  Allen  and  his  associates  in 
France  in  1918. 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      49 

In  the  early  years  of  American  history  there  are 
periods  which  are  chiefly  interesting  to  the  student 
of  constitutional  development;  but  the  man  who 
has  never  felt  the  thrill  and  sweep  of  the  story 
which  Francis  Parkman  has  told  in  his  great  series 
of  histories  covering  the  Jesuits  in  North  America 
and  the  exploits  and  adventures  of  the  men  who 
opened  up  Canada  and  the  Northwest,  has  missed 
one  of  the  passages  in  all  history  which  is  most 
fascinating  and  most  significant.  The  stage  was 
set  for  a  great  epic.  The  arena  was  a  continent. 
The  British  zone  of  interest  on  the  Atlantic  coast 
was  bordered  by  a  vigorous  and  ambitious  group 
of  French  on  the  North,  and  a  proud  and  determined 
group  of  Spaniards  on  the  South  and  West,  while 
in  the  extreme  Northwest  the  Russians  had  obtained 
a  foothold  and  were  laying  their  plans  to  press 
South  and  East.  All  the  elements  were  there  for  a 
repetition  of  the  partition  by  Europe  of  this  continent 
along  the  lines  familiar  in  other  sections  of  the 
world.  What  checked  this  ambitious  progress? 
The  development  of  the  American  nation  cannot  be 
explained  on  the  basis  of  so  many  thousands  of 
soldiers  and  so  many  pounds  of  powder.  American 
history  could  never  have  shaped  itself  as  it  has 
without  a  marked  element  of  the  spirit  of  adventure 
and  self-reliance  out  of  which  had  come  the  dis 
covery  of  the  continent  and  which  had  established 
itself  in  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  the  early 
settlers. 


50  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Finally  the  main  lines  are  laid.  The  Spanish, 
the  French,  the  English  influence  plays  each  its 
part,  along  with  the  Scotch,  the  Irish  and  the 
Welsh.  Then  we  have  the  Dutch  and  the  Swedish 
and  the  Russian  touches  and  the  influences  exerted 
by  our  contacts  with  the  Indians,  the  Mexicans,  the 
Negroes;  and  finally  the  Germans  who  were  repre 
sented  by  thousands  of  men  and  women  seeking  to 
escape  the  tyranny  of  home  conditions.  At  length 
the  Republic  establishes  itself  as  an  independent 
state,  and  we  see  the  infant  nation  struggling 
through  the  dark  years  which  followed  the  Revolu 
tion,  the  critical  period  of  American  history  which  led 
to  the  establishment  of  the  Constitution.  Roughly, 
the  period  from  the  inauguration  of  Washington 
in  1788  to  the  end  of  the  administration  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  in  1829  forms  a  division  easily  re 
membered.  Then  comes  Andrew  Jackson.  The 
period  thus  inaugurated,  including  the  rise  of  the 
vigorous  Democratic  sentiment,  leads  us  up  to  the 
end  of  the  administration  of  Buchanan  in  1861. 
Another  great  sweep  takes  us  from  the  inauguration 
of  Lincoln  in  1861  to  the  end  of  the  administration 
of  Grant  in  1877  when  the  last  Union  troops  were 
withdrawn  from  the  South.  And  finally  there  is 
the  period  of  growing  national  consciousness  from 
the  inauguration  of  Hayes  in  1877  to  the  end  of  the 
administration  of  President  Taft  in  1913.  These 
four  periods  are  crowded  with  interest.  The  salient 
facts  are  easy  to  grasp;  but  only  in  our  own  time 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      51 

has  the  story  begun  to  be  told  in  a  way  which  com 
bines  interest  with  an  accurate  regard  for  the  facts. 
With  the  modern  development  of  a  group  of  vigorous 
and  sound  historical  writers,  the  last  reason  has 
disappeared  for  a  profound  ignorance  of  American 
history  on  the  part  of  men  and  women  who  claim 
to  love  America  and  to  believe  in  the  institutions  so 
slowly  and  bravely  established  by  a  vigorous  line 
of  splendid  dreamers  and  fighters. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on 
the  question  of  American  historical  writing.  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt  was  always  deeply  interested  in  this 
subject  and  was  able  to  set  a  good  example  himself 
in  writing  history  which  was  both  accurate  and 
interesting.  In  1912  as  president  of  the  American 
Historical  Association  he  delivered  an  address  which 
has  since  become  famous  under  the  title  of  "  History 
as  Literature."  He  admits  the  possibility  that  the 
essentials  of  sound  education  and  democratic  citizen 
ship  may  be  taught  through  the  use  of  a  book  which 
lacks  literary  quality,  but  he  vigorously  opposes 
those  critics  who  seem  to  feel  that  because  a  book 
is  readable  it  immediately  comes  under  suspicion 
on  the  part  of  scientific  historians.  "There  are  in 
numerable  books,"  he  says,  "that  is,  innumerable 
volumes  of  printed  matter  between  covers  which  are 
excellent  for  their  own  purposes,  but  in  which 
imagination  would  be  as  wholly  out  of  place  as  in 
the  blue-prints  of  a  sewer  system,  or  in  the  photo 
graphs  taken  to  illustrate  a  work  on  comparative 


52  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

osteology.  But  the  vitally  necessary  sewer  system 
does  not  take  the  place  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims 
or  of  the  Parthenon;  no  quantity  of  photographs 
will  ever  be  equivalent  to  one  Rembrandt,  and  the 
greatest  mass  of  data,  although  indispensable  to 
the  work  of  a  great  historian,  is  in  no  shape  or  way 
a  substitute  for  that  work." 

The  situation  with  regard  to  historical  writing  in 
America  was  recently  discussed  in  an  illuminating 
way  by  Dr.  M.  N.  Quaife  in  the  Mississippi  Valley 
Historical  Review.  He  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  early  days  of  historical  writing  in  this 
country  leading  historians  were  regarded  as  men 
of  letters,  a  school  of  which  Francis  Parkman  w;is 
the  last  and  greatest.  "For  a  full  generation  now," 
he  states,  "the  historical  profession  in  America  has 
been  dominated  by  a  different  type  of  scholar. 
With  the  exception  of  libraries  and  the  development 
of  higher  institutions  of  learning,  with  the  growth 
of  graded  departments  in  scores  of  universities  and 
colleges,  the  writing  of  history  has  become  an 
adjunct  to  the  teaching  of  history  in  these  institu 
tions.  More  and  more  it  has  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  the  specialist  whose  work  as  a  writer  is  financed, 
not  from  the  sale  of  his  writings,  but  by  the  monthly 
stipend  for  teaching  in  the  institution  which  sup 
ports  him.  .  .  .  Emancipated  from  the  necessity  of 
winning  the  favor  of  their  readers  (or  indeed  of 
winning  readers  at  all)  .  .  .  our  university  his 
torians  have  divorced  history  from  literature  and  in 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      53 

their  zeal  for  the  pursuit  of  facts  have  ignored  the 
end  of  presenting  these  facts  in  acceptable  literary 
form.  As  a  consequence,  the  modern  American 
historian  has  lost  in  the  main,  as  he  deserves  to  lose, 
the  attention  of  the  reading  public." 

This  analysis  by  Dr.  Quaife  may  be  supplemented 
by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  preparation 
of  an  adequate  discussion  of  any  substantial  period 
of  American  history  is  not  an  easy  task.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  lifetime.  Henry  Adams  has  given  us 
nine  small  volumes  covering  a  period  of  sixteen 
years,  the  administrations  of  Jefferson  and  Madison, 
which  James  Ford  Rhodes  in  a  letter  characterizes 
as  the  best  piece  of  historical  writing  done  by  an 
American.  Adams  refers  to  himself  in  this  language: 
"Adams  had  given  ten  or  a  dozen  years  to  Jefferson 
and  Madison,  with  expenses  which  in  any  mercantile 
business  could  hardly  have  been  reckoned  at  less 
than  $100,000,  at  a  salary  of  $5,000  a  year;  and 
when  he  asked  what  return  he  got  from  this  ex 
penditure,  rather  more  extravagant  in  proportion  to 
his  means  than  a  racing  stable,  he  could  see  none 
whatever.  Such  works  never  return  money.  Even 
Frank  Parkman  never  printed  a  first  edition  of  his 
relatively  cheap  and  popular  volumes  numbering 
more  than  seven  hundred  copies  until  quite  at  the 
end  of  his  life." 

Mr.  Rhodes  has  set  an  example  of  public  service 
in  retiring  from  a  successful  business  and  devoting 
twenty  years  to  the  preparation  of  seven  brilliant 


54  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

and  highly  readable  volumes  covering  the  period 
from  1850  to  1877.  The  last  volume  of  this  history 
was  published  in  1906  and  Mr.  Rhodes  was  pre 
vented  from  continuing  this  work  by  the  popular 
demand  for  public  lectures  and  for  a  single  volume 
on  the  Civil  War.  He  has  only  recently  been  able 
to  complete  and  publish  his  final  volume,  bringing 
the  narrative  from  1877  down  to  the  administration 
of  President  McKinley.  The  nation  is  richer  be 
cause  of  the  existence  of  these  splendid  volumes. 

The  study  of  American  history  cannot  fail  to  be 
an  unceasing  inspiration  to  Americans.  To  leaders 
of  American  thought  a  knowledge  of  the  nation's 
history  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  necessary  equip 
ment,  and  it  is  easier  today  than  it  has  ever  been  to 
get  a  working  knowledge  of  the  great  subject  from 
brief  and  readable  sources.  Of  course,  one  must  live 
with  it  and  become  a  part  of  it  in  order  to  love  it; 
it  is  not  a  work  which  can  be  accomplished  in  a  day; 
it  can  be  fully  acquired  only  through  the  companion 
ship  of  a  lifetime.  But  amid  the  variety  of  publica 
tions  with  which  an  intelligent  man  must  maintain 
a  working  familiarity,  there  is  perhaps  no  greater 
joy  than  to  have  a  living  and  constantly  expanding 
subject  so  close  to  his  heart  —  a  hobby,  a  source  of 
perpetual  enjoyment;  and  in  days  of  temporary 
discouragement  and  weariness  of  the  spirit  a  source 
of  fresh  inspiration,  confidence  and  hope. 

In  the  history  of  America  is  the  story  of  a  new 
nation,  and  indeed  of  a  new  world  —  a  living  record 


LEADERSHIP  THAT  MADE  AMERICA      55 

not  of  man's  devices,  but  of  man.     In  the  words  of 
James  Russell  Lowell: 

"O  strange   New  World   that  yit  wast  never 

young, 
Whose  youth  from  thee  by  gripin'  need  was 

wrung, 

Brown  foundlin'  o'  the  woods,  whose  baby-bed 
Was  prowled  roun'  by  the  Injun's  cracklin' 

tread, 
And  who  grew'st  strong  thru  shifts  an'  wants 

an*  pains, 
Nursed  by  stern  men  with  empires  in  their 

brains, 

Who  saw  in  vision  their  young  Ishmel  strain 
With  each  hard  hand  a  vassal  ocean's  mane; 
Thou  skilled  by  Freedom  and  by  great  events 
To  pitch  new  states  ez  Old  World  men  pitch 

tents, 

Thou  taught  by  fate  to  know  Jehovah's  plan, 
Thet  man's  devices  can't  unmake  a  man." 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL? 

INFLEXIBILITY  of  purpose,  a  dogged  determination 
to  get  forward,  enforced  by  exceptional  vigor  and 
vitality,  was  a  prominent  characteristic  of  the  frontier 
American.  This  fixity  of  purpose  was  not  of  the 
grim  gloomy  sort.  It  was  relieved  by  an  abundant 
sense  of  humor  —  and  a  sense  of  humor  is  a  sense  of 
proportion,  a  willingness  to  compromise,  a  demand 
for  results,  "an  idealism  with  a  genius  for  the 
practical." 

This  is  the  attitude  of  mind  which  has  come  to  be 
known  as  liberal,  jjt  implies  vigorous  convictions, 
tolerance  for  the  opinions  of  others,  and  a  persistent 
desire  for  sound  progress/jlt  is  a  method  of  approach 
which  has  played  a  notable  and  constructive  part  in 
our  history,  and  which  merits  a  thorough  trial  today 
in  the  attack  on  our  absorbingly  interesting  American 
task. 

Let  us  try  to  define  this  useful  word  liberal.  The 
Standard  Dictionary  has  it  that  to  be  liberal  is  to 
be  "free  from  narrowness,  bigotry,  or  bondage  to 
authority  or  creed,  as  in  religion;  inclined  to  demo 
cratic  or  republican  ideas,  as  opposed  to  monarchical 
or  aristocratic,  as  in  politics;  broad,  popular,  pro 
gressive;  free,  from  birth;  manifesting  a  free  and 

56 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  57 

generous  heart."  A  study  of  contemporary  editorial 
writing,  which  fairly  represents  contemporary  usage 
reveals  a  constant  use  of  the  word  as  descriptive  of 
the  attitude  of  the  average  vigorous  thoughtful 
person,  patriotic,  tolerant,  and  eager  for  results.  It 
is  the  attitude  of  the  great  portion  of  the  population 
who,  after  the  merits  of  a  question  have  been  fully 
discussed  by  the  extremists,  both  reactionary  and 
radical,  want  to  see  if  something  can  be  done  about 
it,  if  any  action  is  called  for. 

To  define  the  liberal,  and  to  point  out  the  need 
for  a  keener  and  more  complete  organization  of  effort 
on  the  part  of  liberals,  is  not  to  criticise  the  extrem 
ists.  The  ground  is  plowed  up  by  the  specialists 
in  reforms  and  Utopias.  But  when  their  new  republic 
is  completely  set  forth  in  theory,  the  workaday 
world  needs  specialists  in  applied  idealism,  specialists 
in  the  work  of  keeping  the  wheels  in  motion;  it  is 
the  liberal  who  determines  how  much  or  how  little 
of  the  radical's  dream  can  actually  be  translated  into 
useful  action. 

America  has  urgent  need  today  for  the  liberal 
group.  This  group  must  be  mobilized  and  recognized 
for  what  it  is,  with  its  responsibilities  clearly  defined. 
The  radicals  are  recognized  as  radicals;  generally 
they  are  willing  to  be  called  radicals;  but  now  and 
then  they  encroach  on  the  precincts  of  the  middle 
group.  For  example  wTe  hear  of  the  Harvard  Liberal 
Club,  which  would  seem,  in  fact,  to  be  a  Harvard 
Radical  Club.  It  is  important  that  the  younger  men, 


58  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

in  and  out  of  the  colleges,  should  stand  forth  frankly 
for  what  they  are.  The  radicals  have  their  place; 
but  a  plea  is  here  made  for  a  substantial  number  of 
organized  liberals  among  the  men  who  are  to  be  the 
leaders  of  the  future.  There  will  always  be  a  good 
supply  of  young  men  who  are  anxious  to  reform  the 
world  forthwith.  The  supply  will  never  fail  of  those 
who  enter  the  world  of  affairs  committed  to  the 
preservation  of  things  as  they  are.^  Between  these 
two  groups  we  need  men  who  will  see  the  world  as 
a  whole,  men  who  realize  that  preservation  of  essen 
tial  institutions  in  a  changing  world  means  the  careful 
and  practicaj^adaptation  of  those  institutions  to 
modern  needs. )  In  short  we  require  men  to  whom  the 
leaders  of  industry  and  government  today  can  hand 
over  the  great  working  machinery  which  mankind 
has  devised  to  feed  and  clothe  itself  under  conditions 
of  law  and  order. 

The  outstanding  men  of  America  today,  par 
ticularly  the  business  men,  are  not  unaware  of  the 
changing  temper  of  the  times.  It  is  a  notable  fact 
that  much  of  the  most  substantial  and  permanent 
progress  has  come  out  of  the  thought  and  effort  of 
practical  men  of  affairs.  Such  progress  is  sure.  It 
is  slow,  often  too  slow  for  the  temper  and  patience 
of  some  eras.  The  war  has  so  stimulated  the  thought 
and  self-consciousness  and  aspiration  of  the  world 
that  this  orderly  progress  is  too  slow  for  an  active 
minority  of  men  today.  The  cry  of  "speed  up"  is 
ringing  round  the  world.  It  touches  a  responsive 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  59 

cord  in  every  right-minded  person  and  it  must  be 
considered. 

And  yet,  in  our  efforts  to  heed  this  demand,  we 
must  recognize  its  dangers.  Such  recognition  points 
at  once  to  the  need  for  the  liberal  mind  and  for  the 
leader  of  liberal  training.  It  is  an  inexorable  law  of 
progress  that  great  and  reasonably  lasting  changes 
involving  the  relationships  of  men  cannot  be  hastily 
effected.  Any  attempt  to  rush  the  wojld  simply 
affords  excitement  for  the  impatient.^  In  spite  of 
temporary  unrepresentative  legislation,  in  the  long 
run  only  such  reform  as  has  the  deep  sanction  of  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  the  majority  of  people  can 
establish  itself  as  an  integral  part  of  what  we  know 
as  the  civilizing  progress  of  the  race/) 
£The  deduction  from  this  may  well  be  that  man 
kind  as  a  whole  is  not  radical!)  It  may  prove  further 
the  necessity  for  liberal  thinking  to  prevent  the  con 
servative  tendency  of  the  race  from  degenerating  to 
inertia.  vWe  need  keen  and  alert  critics  of  the  world 
as  it  is.  We  need  eloquent  prophets  of  the  world  as 
it  ought  to  be.  We  need  poets  and  interpreters  of 
Utopia,  and  ministers  of  the  divine  discontent.}  The 
mariners  of  old  set  a  course  by  the  stars  for  the 
distant  islands  of  their  dreams.  In  the  hope  of 
each  voyager  there  was  a  sure,  straight  course  to 
Cipango  or  Cathay.  But  the  true  course  was  not 
known  until  hardy  adventurers  had  risked  their 
lives  in  a  thousand  journeys  across  uncharted  seas. 
The  true  courses  never  would  have  been  found  but 


60  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

for  the  men  who  were  willing  to  find  out  the  truth 
at  the  risk  of  steering  for  the  false,  at  the  risk  of 
finding  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  hazardous  voyage, 
not  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  but  sandy  wastes  or 
limitless  and  unprofitable  regions  of  snow  and  ice. 

The  American  pioneer  pushed  steadily  toward  the 
setting  sun,  impelled  by  his  love  of  the  great  free 
spaces,  and  undaunted  by  the  risks  and  dangers  of 
his  task.  IThe  American  spirit  was  not  born  of  an 
unwillingness  to  see  changes  wrought  in  the  fabric 
of  human  relationships,  when  such  changes  seemed 
calculated  to  increase  the  happiness  of  the  race. 
The  spirit  of  the  frontier  is  not  conservative;  and  yet 
it  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  malcontent  andthe  agitator/ 
\Jt  is  the  liberal  impulse  of  free  and  vigorous  men  and 
women  in  whose  minds  there  is  an  ordered  purpose, 
calculated  to  produce  a  substantial  measure  of 
happiness.  "JThe  hope  of  America  lies  in  keeping 
this  pioneer  impulse  fresh  and  active  in  the 
hearts  of  succeeding  generations  of  men  who  are 
not  to  be  adventurers  across  unknown  oceans  or  un 
explored  continents  but  rather  pioneers  in  the  still 
uncharted  regions  of  human  relationships,  organizers 
of  the  vast  problems  of  the  new  frontier  of  pro 
duction  and  distribution,  and  the  government  of 
organized  society. 

L,We  have  always  had  liberals;  but  we  have  never 
had  enough  liberal  leadership  Liberals  have  their 
place  in  many  parties;  they  may  be  good  Republicans 
or  good  Democrats,  and  sometimes  good  Socialists. 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  61 

'  But  they  have  too  often  failed  of  their  greatest 
effectiveness  because  they  have  been  too  ready  to 
assume  a  selfish  attitude  and  avoid  organized 
activity^)  They  have  too  often  been  mere  critics. 
They  have  seen  the  true  course,  but  have  been  "too 
busy"  to  do  anything  about  it.  They  have  been  the 
reserves  rather  than  the  shock  troops. 

The  liberal  citizens  have  more  frequently  been 
called  upon  as  a  unit  when  the  issues  before  the 
public  were  non-partisan  in  character,  or  when 
partisan  issues  were  carried  to  a  point  where  the 
interest  of  the  whole  public  was  directly  involved. 
Sometimes  this  uprising  of  liberal  sentiment  mani 
fests  itself  in  a  municipal  election  and  finds  expres 
sion  in  naming  of  a  good  government  ticket.  Today 
it  is  manifesting  itself  in  the  settlement  of  issues 
involving  the  existence  of  democratic  institutions. 
The  vote  which  reflected  Governor  Coolidge  in 
Massachusetts  in  the  fall  of  1919  was  not  a  con 
servative  vote.  It  was,  to  a  large  extent,  liberal. 
Even  the  radicals  were  represented  in  this  vote  — 
those  who  think  too  well  of  America  "with  all  its 
faults"  to  be  willing  to  endorse  a  strike  of  a  part  of 
the  people's  government  against  the  people  whom  it 
was  the  sworn  duty  of  the  strikers  to  protect. 

Meanwhile,  because  some  radicals  have  been  led 
to  adopt  measures  which  are  violently  subversive  of 
government  and  consequently  unpatriotic,  there  has 
been  a  tendency  to  assume  that  patriotism  and  con 
servatism  are  synonymous.  This  is  a  dangerous  point 


62  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  view,  particularly  when  it  leads  the  ultracon- 
servatives  to  wrap  themselves  in  the  folds  of  the 
flag  and  cry  "no  concessions  to  reform  because  all 
reform  is  tainted  with  a  spirit  un-American."  A 
partnership  between  the  stars  and  stripes  and 
Bourbonism  is  no  better  than  an  alliance  between 
the  American  flag  and  the.  red  flag.J  Any  successful 
attempt  of  reactionaries  to  identify  themselves  to 
the  exclusion  of  others  with  principles  of  American 
ism,  can  only  be  expected  to  fill  with  despair  the 
liberals  whose  love  of  America  inspires  them  to 
bring  about  through  votes  the  improvements  in  the 
condition  of  their  fellow  beings  which  they  believe 
to  be  right  and  necessary  —  which  they  believe 
indeed  to  be  the  very  essence  of  free,  democratic 
institutions,  and  hence  of  American  institutions.") 

Here  is  where  l^bera^Jeadership  enters.  It  seeks 
to  lead  and  mold  public  opinion  toward  a  fair 
mid_dle^course;  to  make  clear  that  the  average 
middle-of-the-road  citizen  is  the  one  who  suffers, 
if  the  extremists  are  allowed  to  occupy  the  field 
alone. 

[The  conviction  of  the  liberal  is  not  of  the  luke-  \!r 
warm  variety.     He  believes  as  deeply  and  as  vigor-x 
ously  in  firm,  ordered  progress  as  the  most  ardent 
anarchist  believes  in  blowing  up  statesmen?!  Though 
the  liberal  platform  may  be  less  brilliant  and  spec 
tacular  than  the  extremist  platforms,  it  is  destined 
to  give_j^lief  to  the  body^polkic,  the  body  social, 
to  provide  a  breathing  space  between  periods  of  hot 


'WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  63 

pursuit  of  world-shaping  panaceas,  so  that  natural 
processes  may  work.  The  liberal  is  the  family 
doctor  called  in  when  the  exhausted  and  feverish 
patient  —  the  public  —  has  sunk  down  in  utter 
despair,  feeling  unsound  in  every  organ;  and  the 
doctor  recommends  a  rest,  a  less  feverish  pace,  rather 
than  a  radical  operation,  (in  short,  the  liberal  view 
is  the  view  of  the  common  every-day  man,  the  man 
on  the  street,  and  the  view  of  the  labor  leader  and 
the  corporation  head  who  have  retained  their  contact 
with  simple  living  and  clear  thinking  men  and 
women.  It  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  long  suffering 
American  public —-)  rarely  heard  from  as  a  whole, 
but  just  now  giving  signs  of  an  impending  self- 
assertion,  forced  upon  it  by  a  generation  of  buffetings 
and  affronts. 

Another  way  to  define  the  liberal  is  to  outline 
his  place  among  the  other  groups  in  the  community. 
Who  is  who  in  America  ?j  President  Mitchell  of 
Delaware  College  declares  that  "we  have  today  four 
parties:  the  party  of  the  radical  or  the  child;  the 
party  of  the  young  man  or  the  progressive;  the  party 
of  the  mature  man  or  the  conservative;  and  the 
party  of  the  old  man  or  the  reactionary.'  /  This  is 
suggestive;  but  common  experience  indicates  that 
we  have  in  America  many  old  men,  young  at  heart, 
who  are  essentially  progressive,  and  many  young 
men,  old  beyond  their  years,  who,  in  fancy  at  least, 
are  devotees  of  other  and  better  days,  young  men 
more  conservative  than  their  fathers.  It  is  not  on 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  basis  of  age  entirely  that  public  tendencies  can 
be  grouped. 

|*  It  may  be  a  trifle  more  exact  to  take  as  a  working 
basis  these  five  groups:  Syndicalists,  or  violent 
radicals,  Socialists  and  other  law-abiding  radicals, 
liberals,  conservatives,  and  reactionariesj  The 
Syndicalist  group  includes  in  this  country  the 
I.  W.  W.  They  believe  in  what  they  call  "direct 
action,"  namely,  strikes  and  sabotage.  "Sabotage 
consists  in  habitually  loafing  on  the  job,  putting  sand 
into  the  oil,  putting  sticks  and  pieces  of  metal  into 
delicate  machinery,  destroying  crops,  misdirecting 
shipments  of  goods,  annoying  and  irritating  em 
ployers  in  countless  secret  ways."  For  practical  pur 
poses  we  may  place  in  this  group  the  anarchists  and 
"  Reds  "  whose  methods  of  bringing  about  chaos  differ 
slightly  in  detail  but  who  have  the  common  charac 
teristic  that  they  choose  to  live  in  America,  and  yet 
are  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  every  fundamental 
principle  of  the  American  nation.  They  do  not 
hesitate  at  assault,  arson,  theft  or  murder,  and  they 
have  no  use  for  the  popular  vote  unless  they  happen 
for  the  moment  to  control  it. 

With  the  Socialists  it  is  somewhat  different.  One 
of  the  best  things  that  can  be  said  for  the  Socialists 
is  that  the  Syndicalists  look  upon  them  as  con 
servatives,  if  not  as  reactionaries.  They  are  not 
believers  in  private  property  or  individual  initiative; 
but,  while  there  is  a  wide  range  of  doctrine  that 
claims  to  be  Socialist,  fundamentally  it  should  be 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  65 

borne  in  mind  that  these  disciples  of  Karl  Marx 
are  generally  content  to  bring  about  their  purposes 
through  the  machinery  of  the  popular  vote,  which  is 
the  most  important  fundamental  of  the  American 
system. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  line,  we  have  the  extreme 
reactionary,  who  has  ample  money  to  pay  his  current 
bills,  who  is  opposed  to  any  change  in  his  conditions 
of  living  or  methods  of  doing  business,  who  believes 
that  everything  that  is,  is  right.  He  wants  to  main 
tain  the  status  quo  in  perpetuity.  From  the  liberal 
standpoint,  the  reactionaries  are  decidedly  less  try 
ing  than  the  Syndicalists  in  that  they  do  not  believe 
in  violence.  But  their  Americanism  is  distinctly 
pre-Revolutionary.  Their  belief  in  American  in 
stitutions  involves  so  many  qualifications,  in  the 
shape  of  an  abhorrence  of  Congress,  of  the  machinery 
and  temper  of  democracy,  of  popular  government  in 
most  of  what  they  term  its  vulgar  manifestations, 
that  they  are  more  akin  to  the  intolerance  and  snob 
bishness  of  the  kaisers  and  czars  of  now  discredited 
regimes  than  they  are  to  the  true  spirit  of  the  United 
States  of  America. 

As  for  the  conservatives,  one  of  the  best  things 
that  can  be  said  in  their  favor  is  that  the  reactionaries 
look  upon  them  as  radicals  and  demagogues.  The 
conservatives  as  a  group  believe  in  American  in 
stitutions.  They  believe  in  strict  recognition  of 
traditions,  both  as  to  the  spirit  and  the  letter.  But 
in  the  last  analysis,  when  an  issue  is  brought  to  vote 


66  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

they  abide  by  the  decision  with  no  small  degree  of 
good  nature,  and  go  about  their  business  with  an 
industry,  and,  withal,  an  intelligence,  which  is  of  the 
greatest  value  in  keeping  the  machinery  of  the 
Republic  in  motion,  and  protecting  it  from  an  undue 
variety  of  shocks  and  disturbances. 

Finally  we  have  the  liberals.  This  group  in 
America  today  is  the  largest  of  all.  It  includes  most 
of  the  nation's  workers,  the  keen,  alert  men  and 
women  in  business  and  professional  life,  on  the  farms, 
in  the  newspaper  offices,  and  in  the  factories,  who 
provide  a  great  part  of  the  silent  vote  in  our  popular 
elections.  Indeed  it  is  the  most  representative  and, 
on  the  whole,  while  varying  from  time  to  time 
according  to  the  temper  of  the  day  and  the  particular 
issues  involved,  potentially  the  strongest  and  most 
national  element  in  the  country. 

These  groups  make  up  the  great  human  pageant 
which  is  America.  The  line  between  them  cannot 
be  drawn  with  exactness;  but  the  main  elements  of 
the  groups  are  not  hard  to  recognize.  If  we  leave 
out  of  consideration  for  the  present,  as  so  limited  in 
numbers  and  lacking  in  popular  sympathy  as  to  be 
comparatively  unimportant,  both  the  Syndicalist 
group  and  the  reactionary  group,  we  have  left  a 
fairly  clear  definition  of  our  three  chief  forces.  We 
have  on  the  one  hand  a  group  of  Socialists  and  other 
radicals  who  are  in  sympathetic  alliance  with  the 
Socialists,  who  believe  that  speedy  and  far-reaching 
changes  in  our  social  and  political  system  should  be 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  67 

brought  about;  and  at  the  other  extreme  we  have  a 
group  which  is,  perhaps,  too  contented  with  the 
present  industrial,  social  and  political  situation. 
Between  these  two,  quite  distinct  in  the  mass,  but 
blending  at  either  end  of  the  line  with  the  more 
extreme  groups,  we  have  the  liberals.  They  are 
today  the  real  hope  of  the  nation.  As  we  move  in 
great  diagonals,  first  toward  the  left  and  then  toward 
the  right,  as  the  subtle  and  indefinable  forces  of 
action  and  reaction  sway  the  popular  tendencies 
toward  the  conservative  or  toward  the  radical  point 
of  view,  it  is  the  function  of  the  liberals  to  prevent 
these  swings  from  attaining  too  great  momentum 
and  driving  us  too  far  from  the  sane  middle-of-the- 
road  policies  which  alone  in  the  long  run  can  be 
national,  as  contrasted  with  group,  policies. 

The  liberal  seeks  the  solid  and  eternal  middle- 
ground,  perhaps  less  alluring  than  the  by-ways,  but 
visible  through  the  ages  as  the  highway  of  the  actual 
forward  movement  of  the  race.  No  man  or  woman 
can  be  called  liberal  today  who  lacks  a  deep  sense  of 
the  necessity  for  adjustments  and  even  substantial 
changes  in  the  relationships  of  men  and  things. 
But  where  the  radical  simply  wants  to  go,  the  liberal 
wants  to  go  somewhere.  [When  a  half-considered 
measure  of  reform  is  proposed,  the  radical  shouts, 
"Now,"  the  conservative  retorts,  "Never,"  while 
the  liberal  may  simply  say,  "Not  yet."  j 

The  liberal  finds^  Jiimself  Q£riQ_sed_  to  any  plan 
calculated_abruptly  to  alter  American  institutions-. 


68  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 


e  realizes  they  are  doubtless  imperfect,  being  of 
human  construction;  but  he  knows  they  were  not 
set  up  in  a  day  and  should  not  be  torn  down  in  a 
day.  1  They  are  the  result  of  an  evolution,  and  were 
gradually  shaped  by  the  dreams  and  errors  and  in 
spiration  and  sweat  of  whole  generations  of  men  and 
women,  in  times  of  stability,  and  also  during  periods 
quite  as  saturated  with  unrest  as  our  own.  The 
liberal  seeks,  therefore,  to  .^3  re  vent  extremists  from 
fooling  the  public  with  the  magic  falsehood  which 
has  undermined  the  stamina  and  common  sense  of 
all  people  who  have  let  themselves  believe  in  it, 
the  age-old  cry  of  the  necromancer,  the  alchemist, 
the  swindler  and  the  radical  agitator:  "Here  is 
something  for  nothing!"  .^> 

The  liberals  are  not  a  class.V  Their  greatest 
mission  is  to  merge  class  distinction  into  American 
ism.  1  But  the  varying  degree  of  speed  in  national 
progress  produced  by  the  conflict  of  vigorous  op 
posing  groups  is  the  excuse  for  the  very  existence  of  a 
working  platform  of  liberalism.  \^It  would  be  a  dull 

and  stagnant  world  without  extremists  to  stimulate 

•  "\  •  •  *.     \ 

the  circulation  of  ideas,  ?  The  friendly  war  of  witlfr  ^i 

and  enthusiasts  has  done  more  for  progress,  year  in?  * 
and  year  out,  than  all  the  staid  logic  of  the  schools. 
The  heat  of  conflict,  with  its  bitter  war-cries  and 
stinging  give-and-take,  and  its  ever  present  sense 
of  humor,  has  never  hurt  America.  It  flourished 
in  the  ardent  days  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  a 
saving  grace  in  the  Old  West.  Because  it  is  char- 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  69 

acteristic  of  the  genius  of  our  people,  we  must  take 
care  not  to  curb  it  too  tightly.  Men  of  command 
ing  personality,  with  the  native  vigor  of  the  sons  of 
pioneers,  have  often  led  us  into  tangled  by-ways  of 
political  and  economic  absurdity.  But  we  have 
followed,  and  we  shall  always  follow;  because  men 
jmd  women,^ven  the  high]y__trained,  will  .always 
have  a  fundamental  craving_for  vigorous  leadership, 
even  though  it  be  blind  leadejshia.  And  of  late, 
we  have  been  led  to  our  hearts'  content,  groups  of 
us  this  way  and  that,  swept  off  our  feet  by  propo- 
nfents  of  economic  cure-alls  and  industrial  Utopias. 
I  It  is  only  when  this  hot  but  ordinarily  friendly 
action  and  reaction  becomes  clouded  with  mutual 
suspicion  and  hatred;  when  it  involves  deep- 
seated  distrust  by  one  group  of  Americans  of  other 
groups  of  Americans;  when  it  threatens  the  welfare 
and  happiness  and  even  the  lives  of  our  people, 
that  it  ceases  to  be  tolerable^  Then  we  need  to 
call  a  halt  and  ask  ourselves,  not  as  groups  or  parties, 
but  as  Americans:  \Vhither  are  we  headed? 

In  approaching  the  industrial  problem^  for  ex 
ample,  it  falls  to  the  liberals,  who  are  free  to  think 
without  being  influenced  by  the  preconceptions  of 
extremists,  to  express  the  belief  that  Americans  are 
too  vigorous  a  race  to  rest  upon  the  laurels  of  past 
achievement,  too  farsighted  to  assume  that  the 
soundness  of  every  American  institution  is  self- 
evident,  and  that  all  proposed  changes  are  sacrilege. 
That  is  not  the  spirit  that  built  America.  That  is 


70  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

not  the  spirit  in  which  we  may  profitably  approach 
the  problem  of  social  unrest  which  has  to  an  un 
precedented  degree  for  more  than  a  year  filled  the 
columns  of  our  newspapers,  and  stirred  the  deepest 
feelings  of  our  people.  Possibly  in  a  situation  of 
this  sort  the  liberal  method  of  approach  is  the  only 
road  to  sanity  and  ultimate  solution. 

First  of  all,  it  is  important  to  distinguish  be 
tween  industrial  unrest  and  revolutionary  agitation 
tending  toward  the  over-throw  of  government. 
There  is  no  inherent  difference  between  the  anarchist 
who  brings  his  direct  action  to  bear  upon  the  object 
of  his  hate  through  bomb-throwing,  and  the  an 
archist  who  works  less  directly  through  the  processes 
of  industrial  agitation.  But  this  fact  does  not 
necessarily  render  identical  Red  radicalism  and  even 
the  excessive  demands  of  patriotic  labor.  The  exist 
ence  of  industrial  conditions  which  need  correction 
make  the  labor  field  a  fertile  one  for  the  activi 
ties  of  the  American  Bolsheviki.  The  confusion 
of  industrial  agitation  with  efforts  tending  to  over 
throw  our  Government  and  institutions  has  long 
been  a  source  of  great  strength  to  the  Reds  and  a 
great  source  of  weakness  to  labor.  The  misrepre 
sentations  with  regard  to  the  needs  and  desires  of 
labor  which  have  been  made  current  by  agitators 
who  have  no  constructive  interest  in  labor  condi 
tions  has  been  a  powerful  generator  of  ill-feeling  and 
misunderstanding  in  all  branches  of  the  industrial 
world.  The  liberal  does  not  believe  that  a  more 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  71 

loyal  group  exists  than  the  rank  and  file  of  American 
labor.  The  average  laboring  man  is  far  more 
scornful  of  the  Red  than  the  average  lawyer  or 
doctor  because  he  has  come  into  contact  with  the 
Red  and  has  had  an  opportunity  to  appraise  him. 
None  the  less,  the  perpetual  agitators  exist,  and  do 
great  harm. 

What  we  need,  and  what  we  can  get  with  patience 
and  insight,  is  an  attitude  of  fair  play  both  toward 
labor  and  toward  the  radical  agitator.  This  last 
mentioned  group  is  found  in  every  age  and  in  every 
land.  Their  disease  may  be  called  criminal  im 
patience.  They  are  children  who  seek  to  get  what 
they  want  by  snatching  it.  In  them  the  animal 
instinct  to  kill  and  tear  down  is  predominant. 
And  when  they  work  upon  the  passions  of  men  who 
have  a  grievance  they  naturally  bring  about  an  at 
titude  of  mind  which  is  more  extreme  than  their 
average  humble  follower  realizes  in  the  heat  of  a 
strike  or  a  riot.  Under  our  Constitution  and  laws 
we  cannot  prevent  these  persons,  in  time  of  peace, 
from  giving  expression  to  their  views.  In  these 
days  we  are  still  unconsciously  influenced  by  the 
highly  militant  spirit  developed  during  the  war, 
but  we  cannot  afford  to  forget  that  a  war  must  be 
waged,  even  by  a  democracy,  under  a  system  of 
temporary  autocracy.  When  the  war  has  been 
won  we  cannot  too  soon  remind  ourselves  that  our 
own  forefathers  who  landed  at  Plymouth  and  Boston 
sought  out  those  wild  shores  across  an  almost  un- 


72  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

known  ocean  largely  because  their  views  were  un 
acceptable  and  their  language  intolerable  to  the 
leaders  of  public  opinion  in  the  land  from  which 
they  came. 

In  a  recent  case  in  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  Justice  Holmes,  in  a  dissenting  opinion  called 
attention  to  this  foundation  stone  of  American 
liberty.  He  said: 

"We  should  be  eternally  vigilant  against  attempts 
to  check  the  expression  of  opinions  that  we  loathe 
and  believe  to  be  fraught  with  death,  unless  they 
so  imminently  threaten  interference  with  the  lawful 
and  pressing  purposes  of  the  law  that  an  immediate 
check  is  required  to  save  the  country. 

"Only  the  emergency  that  makes  it  immediately 
dangerous  to  leave  the  correction  of  evil  counsel 
to  time,  warrants  making  any  exception  to  the 
sweeping  demand:  'Congress  shall  make  no  law 
abridging  the  freedom  of  speech."  • 

When  overt  acts  are  committed  against  the 
Government  or  its  citizens  there  should  be  a  more 
swift  and  sure  retribution  than  anything  yet  de 
veloped  by  any  national  or  city  administration. 
Where  proof  of  law-breaking  is  conclusive  there 
should  be  less  talk  of  action  and  more  action.  There 
is  no  qualification  possible  to  this  necessity.  There 
is  no  possible  compromise  between  the  intrenched 
position  of  Americanism  and  the  militant  activities 
of  Syndicalists,  anarchists  and  revolutionists.  The 
American  Legion  and  good  citizenship  generally 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  73 

cannot  do  too  much  to  rid  the  nation  of  these  sub 
limated  murderers.  This  is  a  liberal  policy  also. 
v/The  liberal  is  not  opposed  to  vigorous  action,  but 
he  believes  that  such  action  should  come  only  when 
it  is  positively  and  clearly  justified,  and  then  it 
should  be  taken  with  promptness  and  unqualified 
determination?)  The  liberal  does  not  even  maintain 
that  revolution  is  never  justifiable.  But  he  be 
lieves  it  should  not  be  lightly  entered  upon.  His 
views  are  fully  expressed  in  the  language  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence: 

"When  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes 
necessary  for  one  people  to  dissolve  the  political 
bands  wrhich  have  connected  them  with  another, 
...  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind 
requires  that  they  should  declare  the  causes  which 
impel  them  to  the  separation.  .  .  .  Prudence  will 
dictate  that  governments  long  established  should 
not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes.  .  .  . 
But  when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations, 
pursuing  invariably  the  same  object  evinces  a  de 
sign  to  reduce  them  under  absolute  despotism,  it 
is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off*  such 
government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their 
future  security." 

These  are  carefully  chosen  words.  Should  similar 
conditions  of  oppression  arise  a  similar  remedy  is 
always  at  hand.  But  it  behooves  those  who  resort 
to  this  remedy  to  be  sure  of  the  desperate  character 
of  their  state  of  oppression,  and  to  realize  that  acts 


74  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  treason  and  rebellion  become  acts  of  revolution 
only  after  they  have  succeeded. 

In  these  matters  infinite  patience  is  required  to 
apply  the  rule  of  justice.  There  is  no  question  in 
America  today  on  which  fair-minded  men  so  fre 
quently  differ  as  the  question  of  just  where  the 
line  is  to  be  drawn  between  the  right  of  free  speech 
and  the  abuse  of  that  right.  However,  the  liberal 
maintains  that  the  right  itself  is  such  a  sacred  and 
vital  element  in  the  system  of  liberty  and  democracy, 
that  it  must  be  maintained  even  when  it  is  bitterly 
unpleasant  to  do  so.  It  must  be  clear  that  an 
autocracy  of  opinion  is  not  conceivable  in  America. 
Except  in  the  emergency  of  war  we  cannot  maintain 
that  ideas  unpopular  to  the  majority  are  verboten. 

Arthur  Woods,  in  his  valuable  book,  "The  Police 
man  and  the  Public,"  cites  an  instance  of  a  liberal 
method  of  handling  an  agitator. 

"On  the  day  in  question  a  good-sized  crowd  was 
being  exorted  by  an  earnest  young  woman.  The 
day  was  warm,  the  sun  was  shining,  one  of  these 
grateful  first  days  of  spring  which  so  gladden  our 
hearts  after  a  persistent,  dreary  winter.  The  sky 
was  blue,  the  breeze  gentle.  The  men  in  the  crowd 
were  contented  and  good-natured.  They  had  fin 
ished  their  lunch  and  were  listening  rather  curiously 
and  tolerantly  to  the  orator,  most  of  them  placidly 
smoking.  She  was  declaring  that  about  everything 
connected  with  government  was  wrong;  that  rulers 
were  slaves  of  capitalists;  that  workers  were  slaves 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  75 

of  rulers;  that  the  whole  situation  was  intolerable 
and  should  not  be  permitted;  that,  in  fact,  most 
everything  was  wrong,  and  the  only  real  way  to 
right  it  was  to  listen  to  her,  —  she  would  point  out 
the  way,  then  the  people  could  rise  in  their  might, 
smite  their  rulers,  and  run  things.  The  crowd  kept 
on  calmly  purling  at  cigars  and  complacently  en 
joying  the  comfortable  after-lunch  feeling  and  the 
auspicious  spring  noon. 

"A  newcomer  walking  down  Broadway  joined 
the  crowd.  Possibly  he  had  had  no  lunch,  or  too 
much,  for  he  seemed  to  take  seriously  the  words  of 
the  speaker  which  were  making  no  impression  upon 
the  others.  He  blurted  out  in  a  loud  voice  that  if  she 
didn't  stop  saying  things  like  that  he  would  make 
her!  She  answered  tartly,  for  that  was  just  the 
opportunity  she  wanted,  a  chance  to  start  things, 
—  she  hadn't  been  able  to  work  the  crowd  up  at  all 
until  now.  The  man  was  irritated  by  her  reply, 
made  a  movement  toward  her,  and  announced  that 
he  would  show  her  'what  was  what/ 

"At  once  the  atmosphere  changed.  Men  straight 
ened  up,  took  their  hands  out  of  their  pockets, 
puffed  cigars  faster.  Faces  began  to  tighten. 
People  moved  in  closer.  The  complacency  of  a  few 
moments  before  had  gone.  Tenseness  was  re 
placing  it. 

"The  policeman  assigned  to  cover  that  meeting 
was  standing  on  one  side  of  the  crowd;  he  too  had 
been  enjoying  the  weather  and  the  warmth.  He 


76  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

was  comfortably  braced  on  legs  spread  apart  at 
exactly  the  angle  which  would  give  him  the  best 
support  and  call  for  the  least  effort,  swinging  his 
night  stick  idly  back  and  forth  and  giving  no  heed 
to  the  meeting,  for,  as  an  individual,  he  was  not  in 
terested  in  the  doctrine  that  was  being  expounded, 
and,  as  an  officer  of  the  law,  nothing  was  happening 
which  demanded  his  attention.  With  the  change 
created  by  the  coming  of  the  outraged  citizen, 
however,  a  new  condition  developed. 

"Stepping  up  to  the  objector  the  officer  touched 
him  on  the  shoulder  and  said  pleasantly,  'Come,  my 
friend,  you'll  have  to  cut  this  out.' 

"Cut  nothing  out!  Do  you  hear  what  she's 
saying,  officer?  Why  don't  you  stop  her?  If 
you  don't,  I  will!' 

"Now  see  here/  the  policeman  soothingly  an 
swered,  'this  here  is  her  show.  She  isn't  violating 
any  law  and  as  long  as  she  don't  I'm  going  to  pro 
tect  her  in  her  meeting.  If  you  want  to  hold  a 
meeting,  go  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  street  there 
and  I'll  protect  you  too.' 

"This  closed  the  incident.  The  objector  walked 
off,  the  group  of  listeners  went  their  several  ways, 
smiling  and  amused,  and  the  orator  disappeared." 

This  chapter  may  serve  to  define  in  a  preliminary 
way  what  a  liberal  is.  f  What  the  liberals  seejs  is  that 
a  standard  may  be  set  up  which  will  be  the  rallying 
point,  not  of  men  who  are  seeking  to  win  a  victory 
of  might,  but  a  standard  on  which  are  blazoned  the 


WHAT  IS  A  LIBERAL?  77 

words  of  Lincoln:  "Right  is  might,"  a  standard 
consecrated  to  the  preservation  of  those  few  simple 
rugged  principles  which  are  woven  into  the  brawn 
and  spirit  of  America,  a  standard  borne  aloft  by 
idealists  who  have  actually  attained  the  practical. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF 
THE  ROAD 

IN  the  words  of  a  recent  writer,  "The  peculiar 
mental  disease  of  the  time  is  a  vague  desire  to  make 
the  world  better  combined  with  absolute  ignorance 
of  how  this  is  to  be  done." 

In  the  previous  chapters  an  effort  has  been  made 
to  define  the  practical  idealism  of  the  frontier  with  a 
long  tradition  of  definite  accomplishment  behind  it, 
as  a  vital  element  in  Americanism,  and  to  interpret 
it  for  present-day  purposes  in  the  form  of  a  con 
sciously  liberal  attitude  and  method  of  approach. 
It  is  the  main  thesis  of  this  book.  If  it  were  fully 
understood,  there  would  be  no  object  in  further  dis 
cussion  in  these  pages.  But  at  the  risk  of  over 
emphasis  it  seems  proper  to  avoid  the  danger  of 
leaving  this  thought  in  the  realms  of  the  ideal,  and 
thus  neglecting  one  half  of  its  force.  We  must 
make  an  effort  to  apply  liberal  principles  to  some 
modern  American  problems,  not  with  an  idea  of 
offering  a  solution  of  the  problems  themselves, 
but  by  way  of  illustrating  in  some  small  measure 
the  greater  possibilities  of  these  principles  when 
applied  over  the  whole  range  of  the  American  life 

of  today. 

78 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    79 

Let  us  take  for  example  the  liberal  in  his  relation 
ship  to  politics.  He  is  a  balance-wheel.  The 
radical  is  dangerous  only  when  the  liberal  is  quies 
cent.  The  conservative  tends  towards  reaction  only 
when  the  liberal  is  inactive.  In  our  own  day  the 
extremes  in  politics  have  drawn  too  far  apart. 
Their  differences  sometimes  appear  irreconcilable. 
But  in  America  some  working  basis  is  always  found; 
and  to  find  it  is  always  the  paramount  duty  of  the 
liberal.  This  is  particularly  true  in  the  world  of 
industry.  The  political  liberal  can  render  a  supreme 
service  in  speeding  up  the  machinery  of  constructive 
reform  so  that  the  opposing  industrial  elements  will 
cease  the  perpetual  shaking  of  fists  in  one  another's 
faces,  and  get  down  to  the  business  of  analysis  and 
comparison  of  facts.  There  is  too  much  talk  of 
war  between  capital  and  labor.  In  the  first  place 
there  can  be  no  real  fight  if  a  few  men  who  have 
succeeded  in  a  financial  way  are  supposed  to  be 
defending  a  system  of  personal  privilege  against 
millions  of  men  and  women  in  moderate  circum 
stances.  The  fight  is  ended  before  it  is  begun. 
Under  a  form  of  government  where  votes  prevail, 
a  system  of  capitalism  which  could  be  shown  to  be 
simply  a  system  of  unmerited  personal  privilege 
and  'recompense  would  not  have  chance  enough 
to  make  the  struggle  even  interesting.  If  labor 
will  realize  the  power  of  the  ballot  and  its  infinite 
superiority  to  the  strike  as  a  medium  of  attaining 
lasting  results,  labor  will  not  be  so  ready  to  conclude 


80  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

that  the  vote  is  too  slow.  If  the  radicals  can  win 
victories  at  the  polls  they  will  win  lasting  and 
American  victories. 

Of  course  the  radicals  have  an  answer  to  this. 
Mr.  Morris  Hillquit  in  the  fifth  edition  of  his  History 
of  Socialism  in  the  United  States  says,  in  speaking 
of  the  difficulties  in  the  path  of  the  rapid  growth 
of  socialism:  "Another  obstacle  has  been  the 
political  system  of  the  country.  Paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem,  our  very  democracy  has  militated  against 
the  immediate  success  of  socialism.  .  .  .  Politics  has 
become  as  much  an  industry  with  us  as  railroading 
or  manufacturing.  This  situation  has  bred  in  the 
mind  of  the  average  American,  including  the  Ameri 
can  workingman,  a  deep-seated  feeling  of  indifference, 
even  contempt,  for  politics,  which  is  anything  but 
conducive  to  the  development  of  a  radical  move 
ment  for  political  reform." 

In  other  words,  as  a  believer  in  democracy  might 
put  it,  the  Socialists  have  failed  to  convince  a  suf 
ficient  number  of  American  voters  of  the  Tightness 
of  their  cause  or  the  desirability  of  their  candidates 
to  enable  them  to  succeed  largely  in  the  political 
arena.  Therefore  they  will  no  longer  play  the  game. 
They  will  invent  a  new  game  with  rules  of  their 
own,  and  be  their  own  judge  and  jury. 
^  Mr.  Hillquit  continues:  "The  difficulties  of  all 
such  reform  movements  are  still  more  aggravated 
by  the  so-called  'two  party'  system  in  American 
politics.  Ever  since  the  creation  of  the  republic 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    81 

the  contest  for  political  power  has  been  waged  be 
tween  two,  and  only  two,  dominant  parties.  New 
political  parties,  so-called  *  third  parties/  have  ap 
peared  in  the  arena  from  time  to  time  but  not  one 
of  them  has  developed  any  appreciable  strength 
and  stability.  As  a  rule  they  have,  after  a  more  or 
less  tempestuous  career,  been  absorbed  by  one  of 
the  old  parties.  The  two  party  system  thus  sanc 
tioned  by  tradition,  is  now  largely  continued  by 
design.  The  dominant  political  parties,  the  Re 
publican  and  Democratic,  are  in  the  nature  of 
political  trusts.  Together  they  control  all  the 
offices  and  'patronage'  of  the  country  and  almost 
the  entire  press  and  other  organs  of  public  expres 
sion.  They  have  the  backing  of  the  great  industrial 
and  financial  interests  and  the  support  of  large 
armies  of  trained  and  specialized  political  workers. 
They  divide  all  political  'spoils'  among  themselves, 
mostly  by  methods  of  struggle  and  conquest,  and 
sometimes  by  voluntary  apportionment.  The  task 
of  a  new  party  to  replace  either  of  them  or  to  gain 
a  permanent  or  important  footing  alongside  of 
them  is  thus  from  the  outset  a  very  difficult  one." 

The  net  result  of  all  this  is  that  it  is  a  difficult 
job  to  get  a  new  system  of  thought  or  a  new  social 
order  adopted  in  America.  Is  that  a  fault  in  our 
system?  Or  is  the  fault  with  the  Socialist  proposal? 
Have  they  not  enough  devotion  and  enthusiasm, 
coupled  with  necessary  knowledge  of  organization 
and  publicity  methods,  to  play  the  game  in  America 


82  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

with  American  tools?  Has  any  party  a  vested  right 
to  a  place  in  the  sun  except  upon  a  basis  of  con 
vincing  the  minds  as  well  as  touching  the  hearts  of 
our  people?  The  trouble  is  that  the  Socialists, 
like  all  other  human  beings,  are  impatient  for  re 
sults.  It  never  occurs  to  them  that  perhaps  the 
verdict  so  far  pronounced  by  the  majority  of  Ameri 
cans  may  be  right.  Socialism  may  not  be  right  for 
America.  It  certainly  is  not  an  American  policy 
until  American  voters  vote  for  it. 

Mr.  Hillquit  himself  adopts  a  more  patient  at 
titude  toward  the  present  political  machinery  when, 
at  the  close  of  his  well-written,  and,  to  a  liberal 
wholly  unconvincing,  book  he  says,  "Many  of  the 
measures  of  industrial,"social  and  political  reform, 
originally  advocated  exclusively  by  the  Socialists, 
are  gradually  being  forced  into  the  platforms  of 
other  parties  and  organizations.  The  Socialist 
program  has  become  one  of  the  favorite  topics  of 
discussion  in  books,  in  the  periodical  press,  and  on 
our  public  platforms.  Socialism  is  at  last  beginning 
to  get  a  hearing  before  the  people,  and  the  people 
of  the  United  States  move  fast  when  once  they  are 


set  in  motion." 


This  passage  answers  the  charge  of  Mr.  Hillquit 
made  in  the  previous  quotation.  He  admits  he  is 
getting  a  hearing.  Despite  occasional  hysterical  in 
stances  of  un-American  repression,  in  Albany  and 
elsewhere,  the  Socialist  who  is  loyal  to  America  will 
always  have  the  right  to  be  heard.  He  can  ask 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD     83' 

for  no  more.  If  his  cause  is  right  it  will  prevail. 
But  if  it  is  wrong,  we  shall  hope  that  liberal  lead 
ership,  following  the  immemorial  custom  of  Ameri 
can  politics,  will  absorb  into  one  or  the  other  of  the 
great  parties  from  year  to  year,  all  that  is  good  of  it, 
or  all  that  the  people  are  ready  for.  This  is  what 
was  done  by  the  Democrats  and  to  some  extent  by 
the  Republicans  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Pro 
gressive  Party.  It  was  done  by  Jefferson  wTith  much 
of  the  best  doctrine  of  the  Federalists,  so  that  there 
was  nothing  for  that  party  to  do  but  go  out  of  busi 
ness.  It  has  always  been  one  of  the  most  magni 
ficent  safeguards  of  American  liberalism  and  orderly 
democracy  to  absorb  little  by  little  the  good  in 
all  the  new  and  radical  groups  that  have  been 
springing  up  among  us.  It  keeps  us  in  the  middle  of 
the  road,  going  forward  always,  perhaps  not  as  fast 
as  we  should,  but  certainly  not  turning  turtle  in  road 
side  ditches  because  we  are  off  the  road,  or  speeding. 
As  for  the  radicals  we  must  face  the  fact  that  they 
are  working  to  win.  They  cannot  be  ignored;  and 
they  can  only  be  met  by  organization  and  full  partici 
pation  in  politics  by  the  liberal  element  in  the  com 
munity.  The  following  brief  and  pertinent  edi 
torial  recently  appeared  in  a  New  York  newspaper: 

REGISTRATION 

Registration  began  yesterday  and  will  continue  the 
remaining  days  of  the  week.  If  you  believe  there  is 
a  better  way  of  conducting  government  than  by  riot 
and  force  see  that  your  name  is  on  the  voting  list. 


84  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  citizens  of  New  York  took  the  advice  offered. 
A  great  many  were  busy  men  and  women  who 
ordinarily  belong  to  what  is  known  as  the  "silent 
vote"  -the  group  which  appears  at  the  polls  only 
to  register  a  conviction.  The  vote  means  something 
to  these  people.  They  realize  that  the  people  often 
vote  for  bad  measures.  But  they  have  an  enduring 
and  fundamental  faith  that  in  the  long  run  the  people 
vote  right  —  that  the  vote  is  indeed  the  only  pos 
sible  machinery  for  a  sane  middle-of-the-road  democ 
racy  to  employ.  They  believe  it  is  the  answer 
of  the  ages  to  the  two  extremes  of  mob  rule  and 
Kaiser  rule. 

This  middle-of-the-road  democracy  is  worth  a 
little  study.  It  is  a  very  good  thing  to  tie  to  in 
times  like  our  own.  In  one  sense  it  is  a  policy  of 
compromise.  Sometimes  it  is  hard  for  some  of  our 
leaders  to  get  into  their  minds  the  distinction  be 
tween  compromising  on  principle  and  compromis 
ing  on  everything  else  in  the  world  except  principle. 
Parson  Campbell  said  to  young  David  Balfour  when 
he  was  starting  out  on  his  journey  of  life,  "Be 
soople,  Davie,  in  things  immaterial!"  This  is 
traditional  American  doctrine.  The  only  danger  in 
volved  in  it  is  that  in  this  country  where  freedtfm  of 
thought  has  led  us  to  give  full  credit  to  every  man's 
point  of  view,  people  are  too  ready  to  believe  there 
are  two  sides  to  every  question,  in  the  sense  of  two 
right  sides.  This  is  not  liberalism  but  intellectual 
nihilism.  It  leads  men  to  assume  that  the  truth 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    85 

cannot  be  arrived  at,  that  a  working  basis  is  im 
possible  to  attain.  In  trying  to  avoid  dogmatism 
and  an  intolerant  or  a  reactionary  point  of  view  we 
have  given  too  much  consideration  to  utterances  in 
which  the  precentage  of  truth  was  so  small  as  to 
be  negligible. 

H.  G.  Wells  is  quoted  as  having  said  at  the  end  of 
a  long  argument  with  a  group  of  men  in  a  London 
club,  lasting  until  four  or  five  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
that  he  was  through  with  arguments.  He  always 
found,  he  said,  that  after  all  present  had  argued 
until  they  were  tired  out  it  almost  always  appeared 
that  the  difficulty  wTas  simple  and  fundamental, 
one  that  could  have  been  settled  in  ten  minutes, 
and  involved  a  failure  to  define  the  terms  which 
were  the  basis  of  the  discussion  and  which  each 
man  was  using  in  an  entirely  different  significance. 

One  of  the  tasks  of  liberal  leadership  today  is  to 
arrive  at  a  definition  of  terms,  the  common  plat 
form  of  principle  and  understanding.  After  this 
common  basis  of  discussion  has  been  arrived  at  it 
will  very  often  appear  quite  clearly,  not  that  both 
sides  to  the  controversy  are  right,  but  that  both 
sides  are  intelligible.  Then  for  the  liberal  leader 
who  is  looking  to  acquire  not  simply  a  philosophical 
understanding  of  life,  and  a  human  sympathy  with 
the  tendencies  in  human  nature  toward  extremes  of 
radicalism  or  conservatism,  but  also  a  course  of 
action  for  today  and  tomorrow,  the  true  solution 
will  often  seem  to  lie  in  a  middle  course.  "We 


86  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

have  achieved  democracy  in  politics/'  said  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  "just  because  we  have  been  able  to 
steer  a  middle  course  between  the  rule  of  the  mob 
and  the  rule  of  the  dictator.  We  shall  achieve  in 
dustrial  democracy  because  we  shall  steer  a  similar 
middle  course  between  the  extreme  individualist 
and  the  socialist,  between  the  demagogue  who  at 
tacks  all  wealth  and  who  can  see  no  wrong  done 
anywhere  unless  it  is  perpetrated  by  a  man  of 
wealth,  and  the  apologist  for  the  plutocracy  who 
rails  against  so  much  as  a  re-statement  of  the 
Eighth  Commandment  upon  the  ground  that  it 
will  'hurt  business." 

In  his  study  of  the  Civil  War,  James  K.  Hosmer 
says  of  Lincoln,  "The  Democrats  and  border-state 
men  blocked  abolition  measures  as  they  could, 
while  the  Republicans  pushed  them  ever  more 
energetically.  Between  the  two  opinions  Lincoln 
sought  a  middle  course."  The  lessons  of  accom 
plishment  and  of  liberal  progress  for  the  people  of 
this  nation,  embodied  in  the  lives  of  Lincoln  and 
Roosevelt,  are  worth  study  by  men  who  are  too 
ready  to  believe  that  conviction  on  a  particular 
point  immediately  calls  for  them  to  take  a  high 
moral  stand  and  declare  with  great  emphasis: 
"This  issue  involves  a  principle,"  "On  this  subject 
there  can  be  no  compromise";  "There  is  nothing  to 
arbitrate." 

There  come  times  in  the  lives  of  men  when  ar 
bitration  must  end,  when  no  further  compromise  is 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    87 

possible.  Both  Lincoln  and  Roosevelt  faced  such 
crises  with  firmness  and  high  courage.  But  liberals 
of  today  will  do  well  to  realize  that  the  occasions 
are  few  when  compromise  can  be  impossible,  if  un 
willingness  to  compromise  must  lead  to  bloodshed 
and  disaster,  and  may  in  the  end  not  bring  about 
the  results  accomplished.  There  have  been  few 
men  in  this  world  who  could  afford  to  be  sufficiently 
sure  of  themselves,  sufficiently  confident  of  their 
individual  judgment  and  insight  in  dealing  with 
issues  involving  the  happiness  of  great  bodies  of  men 
and  women,  to  be  able  to  take  the  position  that  there 
is  nothing  to  arbitrate.  The  great  forward  steps  in 
the  history  of  the  world  have  been  taken  by  men  who 
combined  a  burning  conviction  of  the  rightness  of 
their  cause  with  the  profound  practical  ability  to 
get  that  cause  one  step  farther  toward  its  realiza 
tion  this  year,  and  another  step  forward  next  year 
and  another  step  forward  the  year  after,  firmly 
establishing  each  forward  step  on  the  basis  of  public 
opinion.  In  great  leaders  patience  has  not  been 
inconsistent  with  enthusiasm.  This  is  progress  in 
the  middle  of  the  road.  This  is  the  vigorous  but 
steady  and  permanent  progress  of  the  pioneer  with 
his  eyes  definitely  turned  Westward.  It  is  not  the 
progress  of  Danton  and  Robespierre  with  their  eyes 
turned  inward,  sweeping  a  nation  in  one  step  from 
the  extreme  of  autocracy  to  the  extreme  of  moboc- 
racy,  only  to  see  it  swing  sharply  back  to  an  au 
tocracy  more  extreme  than  the  one  destroyed. 


88  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Liberalism  is  a  point  of  view  and  not  a  body  of 
doctrine.  It  is  the  common  law  of  thought  and  not 
a  formal  statute.  The  true  liberal  approaches  his 
problems  one  at  a  time;  he  espouses  a  cause  only 
after  he  has  thought  it  through.  But  when  he  has 
reached  this  point  he  will  with  enthusiasm  fight 
the  battle  to  the  end.  Great  causes  are  never  led 
by  intellectuals.  When  the  lines  are  once  laid, 
then  the  leader  must  put  his  analytical  powers  in 
the  background  and  nail  his  flag  to  the  mast.  "It 
is  only  on  the  wings  of  enthusiasm  that  we  rise, 
and  he  who  depends  upon  reason  alone  will  never 
fly."  This  is  the  human  element  in  the  discussion 
of  leadership  which  makes  it  so  dramatically  in 
teresting.  The  liberal  leader  may  espouse  a  cause 
and  become  so  carried  away  with  it  as  to  go  to  all 
the  extremes  which  his  common  sense  makes  him 
feel  are  unjustified.  In  the  heat  of  battle  he  throws 
overboard  his  liberalism  and  becomes  a  radical;  or 
his  success  may  dull  the  edge  of  his  determination 
and  he  may  swing  to  the  reactionary  side. 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  occurred 
one  of  the  great  upheavals  of  history  brought  about 
by  a  group  of  men  who  insisted  on  thinking  for 
themselves.  The  Reformation  shaped  itself  from 
small  beginnings  into  a  great  forward  step  in  human 
thought  and  in  the  relations  between  man  and  man, 
and  between  man  and  the  Church.  But  "The  new 
communions  soon  proved  themselves  scarcely  more 
tolerant  that  the  old.  Asserting  their  own  claims 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    89 

to  liberty  of  opinion,  they  were  quick  to  refuse 
that  privilege  to  those  who  disagreed  with  them. 
It  was  still  possible  for  Luther  to  deny  the  suprem 
acy  of  Roman  dogma  and  to  denounce  the  doctrines 
of  his  protestant  rivals  with  equal  vigor.  It  was 
still  possible  for  Calvin  to  demonstrate  his  right  to 
renounce  the  old  faith  and  practices,  and  have 
Servetus  burned  for  refusing  to  assent  to  a  particular 
arrangement  of  the  words,  'the  infinite  Son  of  the 
Father'  as  against  'the  Son  of  the  infinite  Father."1 
An  ever  fresh  supply  of  liberal  leaders  is  needed, 
the  administrators  of  the  world,  to  raise  standards 
of  action  for  a  new  day  and  generation.  And  one 
of  the  most  useful  objects  of  consideration  is  always 
our  National  Legislature.  The  present  Congress  is 
made  up  of  three  hundred  and  twenty-three  men, 
out  of  a  total  membership  of  five  hundred  and 
twenty-nine,  who  may  roughly  be  classified  as 
lawyers.  Fifty-six  are  business  men  or  manu 
facturers,  nineteen  are  bankers. 

TABLE  OF  OCCUPATIONAL  CLASSIFICATION  OF  MEMBERS  OF 
CONGRESS 

Senate     House     Total 

Lawyers 61         262        323 

Business  men     \  , 

Manufacturers  J     

Lawyer,  author  and  college  ] 

president 

Lawyer  and  farmer 
Lawyer  and  business  man     J 
Bankers 5          14          19 


90  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Senate  House  Total 

Newspaper  men  and  publishers 8  25  33 

Farmers 6  9  15 

Teachers 6  6 

Doctors 2  3  5 

Ministers  and  professors 2  2 

Author  and  lecturer I  I 

Dentist I  I 

Builders 2  2 

Mining  men 2  2 

Locomotive  engineers 3  3 

Iron  molders 2  2 

Hat  worker I  I 

Railroad  conductors'  representative I  I 

No  occupation  given 6  42  48 

95  434  529 


It  is  obvious  that  if  we  are  going  to  have  a 
thoroughly  representative  Congress  we  need  to 
spread  out  our  leadership  more  widely.  We  need 
more  trained  business  men  and  engineers.  It  is 
true  that  the  salary  of  $7500  now  paid  to  a  repre 
sentative  or  senator  is  the  sole  cause  of  keeping  out 
of  Congress  many  men  whom  we  should  like  to  have 
there.  Perhaps  the  compensation  should  be  higher, 
although  in  comparison  with  the  $12,000  salaries 
of  cabinet  officers,  for  example,  it  is  not  strik 
ingly  low.  But  what  is  needed  more  than  an 
increase  of  salary  is  the  increase  in  popular  under 
standing  of  the  significance  of  Congress  so  that  its 
prestige  may  grow  and  thus  strengthen  the  impulse 
on  the  part  of  the  best  men  in  the  country  to  render 
service  in  Washington.  Money  alone  will  not  lead 
them  there. 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    91 

Liberal  thought  has  almost  as  much  to  do  in 
bringing  about  a  fairer  attitude  toward  Congress 
as  it  has  in  bringing  about  a  more  thorough  under 
standing  of  business.  There  are  probably  in  the 
country  almost  as  many  people  who  have  fallen 
into  the  practice  of  criticizing  Congress  as  there 
are  people  who  attribute  all  our  woes  to  the  busi 
ness  and  financial  district  of  lower  Manhattan. 
In  bringing  about  a  closer  cooperation  among 
leaders  of  thought,  business  men  must  get  over 
criticizing  Congress  in  the  abstract  just  as  Congress 
must  get  over  attacking  Wall  Street  in  the  ab 
stract.  Individuals  in  both  groups  will  always  be 
helped  by  just  criticism;  but  both  are  a  product  of 
a  complex  variety  of  conditions,  and  as  each  system 
requires  it,  we  should  unite  in  modifying  it,  rather 
than  keeping  up  the  present  tiresome  and  de 
structive  mutual  recrimination.  This  suggestion 
may  sound  impossible,  but  it  is  important  enough 
to  merit  consideration.  • 

A  discussion  of  Congress  goes  to  the  root  of  our 
institutions.  We  have  a  representative  govern 
ment,  and  Congress  comes  as  near  being  a  fully 
representative  body  as  any  in  the  world.  The 
American  system  did  not  contemplate  a  Congress 
made  up  of  the  most  distinguished,  experienced  and 
cultured  men  in  the  nation.  That  would  be  not 
a  Senate  and  House  [of  Representatives,  but  a 
kind  of  Hall  of  Fame.  The  country  could  not 
afford  to  have  all  its  active  and  trusted  leaders 


92,  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

spending  most  of  their  time  in  Washington.  What 
we  have  in  Congress  is  a  representative  group, 
typical  of  the  trained  and  thoughtful  men  of  America 
and  of  the  untrained  and  thoughtless,  the  idealists 
and  the  demagogues,  the  selfish  and  the  generous, 
the  practical  and  the  impractical,  the  men  of  dy 
namic  energy  and  the  loafers.  Sometimes  we  find  a 
representative  who  is  below  the  standard  of  the  rep 
resentative  thought  of  his  constituency,  and  then 
we  may  say  that  he  represents  simply  the  low 
degree  of  awakened  responsibility  which  exists  in 
his  district. 

This  is  a  most  vital  point.  If  the  voters  are 
asleep  they  cannot  expect  the  best  man  in  the 
district  to  take  pride  and  pleasure  in  representing 
them  in  Congress  at  $7500  a  year.  Then  again, 
we  have  many  districts  in  this  country  where  the 
constituency  comprises  nothing  but  farmers,  vigor 
ously  engaged  in  producing  foodstuffs  for  America 
and  for  the  world.  It  is  not  in  their  line  to  de 
velop  trained  economists  or  experts  in  international 
law  or  forensic  debate.  But  they  can  send  to  Con 
gress  a  man  who'is  a  straightforward  and  rugged  type 
of  American  citizenship  and  who  can  throw  a  great 
light  upon  agricultural  necessities.  Big  Tim  Sul 
livan,  of  New  York,  was  quoted  as  saying  that  he 
could  represent  his  East  Side  constituency  in  Con 
gress  a  great  deal  better  than  Alexander  Hamilton 
could  have  represented  it.  And  he  was  right. 
Assuming  that  a  district  has  fallen  under  the  control 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    93 

of  machine  politics  to  an  extent  where  the  votes 
of  the  people  are  used  for  personal  rather  than 
public  purposes,  the  remedy  lies  in  raising  the 
standard  of  political  morality  in  that  district  and 
not  in  complaining  of  the  quality  of  the  repre 
sentative  who  adequately  represents  the  state  of 
political  education  of  the  people  whose  votes  elect 
him.  If  we  believe  in  a  representative  system  we 
should  stop  complaining  of  the  way  the  system  is 
working  and  take  steps  to  see  that  it  works  better 
by  discharging  our  duties  as  citizens,  not  only  in 
times  of  political  enthusiasm,  but  every  time  a 
primary  or  other  election  takes  place.  There  are 
many  who  argue  with  considerable  logic  that  a 
man  or  woman  ought  to  retain  the  right  of  citizen 
ship  just  so  long  as  the  right  of  suffrage  is  exercised, 
and  that  to  help  matters  along  a  fine  should  be  im 
posed  upon  those  who  do  not  vote. 

It  has  been  said  of  American  business  men  as  a 
whole,  that  their  famous  American  originality  and 
ability  is  shown  in  almost  every  direction  except 
politics,  and  is  weakest  of  all  when  it  comes  to  local 
politics,  which  must  be  sound  before  national 
politics  can  be  expected  to  be  sound.  The  influence 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt  did  more  than  any  other  one 
thing  towards  cleaning  out  the  extreme  corruptions 
of  the  city  governments  of  a  generation  ago.  But 
even  today  there  is  much  to  be  done.  In  all  our 
big  cities  the  liberal  element  occasionally  arouse? 
itself  to  a  sense  of  responsibility  and  puts  in  a  so- 


94  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

called  reform  administration,  the  temporary  suc 
cess  of  which  is  almost  always  the  signal  for  two 
things:  first,  the  retirement  of  the  liberal  element 
who  have  aroused  themselves  for  one  great  cam 
paign  and  who,  feeling  that  a  splendid  result  has 
been  accomplished,  go  about  their  several  lines  of 
business;  and  second,  the  redoubled  activity  of 
the  organization  which  is  voted  out  of  power.  A 
host  of  professional  politicians  find  themselves 
out  of  a  job  and  set  to  work  quietly  and  effectively 
night  and  day  to  such  good  effect  that  the  next 
election  is  usually  an  overwhelming  victory  for  their 
forces. 

The  amount  of  work  necessary  for  a  group  of 
liberal  amateurs  to  turn  out  of  office  a  group  of 
intrenched  professional  politicians  is  out  of  all 
proportion  to  what  can  be  expected  over  a  period 
of  years  from  men  who  are  busy  in  other  matters. 
The  answer  is  that  the  liberal  element  in  every 
community  must  organize  and  maintain  a  per 
manent  active  organization  of  opposition,  based 
upon  principle  and  not  upon  prejudice.  More  men 
of  education  and  private  income  should  be  willing 
to  go  into  politics,  as  Theodore  Roosevelt  did,  at 
the  bottom,  and  become  professionals  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word,  so  as  to  lead  the  amateurs  along 
right  lines.  There  is  nothing  more  pitiful  as  a 
rule  than  the  misguided  intentions  of  a  group  of 
otherwise  intelligent  and  successful  business  men 
who  get  together  over  night  and  determine  to  win 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    95 

an  election.  Unless  there  is  a  dominating  cause 
which  sweeps  the  people  off  their  feet  such  a  group 
almost  always  finds  itself  helpless  in  the  face  of 
the  opposition  of  the  members  of  the  "machine" 
who  are  professional  students  of  popular  psychology 
and  who  can  turn  almost  anything  the  business 
man  may  say  to  their  sharp  disadvantage  as  being 
inspired  by  the  "silk-stockings"  and  backed  by 
the  "money-bags." 

The  only  way  to  fight  a  political  machine  is  with 
another  political  machine  which  knows  just  as 
much  about  popular  psychology  and  just  as  much 
about  the  legitimate  methods  of  political  campaign 
ing,  but  which  is  dominated  by  motives  of  public 
spirit  rather  than  motives  of  private  advantage. 
In  this  work  leadership  is  necessary.  What  is 
everybody's  job  is  nobody's  job  in  politics.  We 
must  have  leaders  of  practical  experience  whose 
principles  and  ideals  have  been  tested  by  a  close 
and  life-long  contact  with  practical  politics.  Let 
them  go  into  the  hurly-burly  of  politics,  with  its 
old  rules  and  traditions,  its  impulsiveness,  its  good 
humor.  Let  them  submit  their  personality  and 
their  ideals  to  the  judgment  of  the  voters,  and  they 
will  find  that  judgment  generally  sound. 

While  we  are  discussing  the  character  of  our 
public  men  it  is  relevant  to  refer  to  the  interesting 
fact  that  a  new  influence  has  been  injected  into 
national  politics  with  the  advent  of  the  woman 
voter.  As  yet  the  woman  in  national  politics  in 


96  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

America  has  no  history.  How  she  gained  ad 
mittance  to  the  political  arena  is  a  stirring  story. 
But  it  takes  a  long  time  in  the  give  and  take  of 
primaries  and  elections  for  any  new  and  far-reach 
ing  movement  to  develop  a  set  of  chronicles  upon 
which  sound  judgment  can  be  passed  and  from 
which  principles  can  be  drawn.  That  women  are 
in  politics  with  a  determination  to  make  history  is 
evident.  One  of  the  significant  stories  in  the  recent 
political  news  is  the  following  from  a  New  York 
paper,  which  is  given  in  full  with  a  change  of 
names. 

"Republican  women  of  Plumville  believed  John 
J.  Nowitz  had  called  them  cats  and  old  hens  and 
was  against  giving  them  an  opportunity  of  voice  in 
the  party  management,  and  he  was  deposed  as 
chairman  of  the  Plumville  County  Committee  last 
night.  The  members  of  the  county  committee 
elected  John  W.  Gallahad.  Chairman  Gallahad  is 
head  of  a  local  charitable  organization.  He  has 
heretofore  played  no  part  in  politics.  The  women 
did  not  stop  with  forcing  out  Nowitz,  however. 
They  insisted  upon  an  entirely  new  staff  of  officers, 
which  was  promptly  named.  Then  they  demanded 
that  a  woman  be  selected  as  co-chairman.  Under 
the  rules  this  could  only  be  done  at  a  special  meet 
ing.  A  special  meeting  was  called." 

The  women  of  Plumville  have  felt  a  taste  of  power, 
and  they  will  pass  the  good  word  along.  The  en 
trance  of  women  into  politics  thus  brings  us  one  step 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    97 

nearer  to  an  unqualified  acceptance  of  the  first 
seven  words  of  the  Preamble  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  reads,  "We,  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect 
union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity, 
provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote  the  gen 
eral  welfare  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to 
ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish 
this  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of  America/' 
When  these  words  were  written  "We,  the  people " 
did  our  ordaining  entirely  through  the  masculine 
half  of  the  population. 

The  war  taught  us  that  women  can  handle  great 
organizations  efficiently  and  constructively.  The 
few  who  still  maintained  in  1916  that  the  world 
was  standing  on  its  head  because  women  were  al 
lowed  to  vote  are  rarely  heard  from,  since  women 
demonstrated  their  power  and  ability  as  organizers 
and  persistent  workers  in  France,  in  the  Liberty 
Loans  and  in  a  hundred  branches  of  war  relief. 
But  even  here  it  should  be  emphasized  that  possibly 
the  most  conspicuous  cases  of  achievement  on  the 
part  of  women  during  the  war  were  those  where 
they  entered  without  prejudice  or  favor  into  great 
organizations  with  men,  working  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  men,  and  achieving  their  success,  not  because 
they  were  women,  nor  in  spite  of  the  fact  they  were 
women,  nor  indeed  as  women  at  all,  but  simply  as 
straightforward  and  conspicuous  examples  of  Ameri 
can  character,  energy  and  business  efficiency. 


98  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  opportunity  which  lies  ahead  of  women  is  a 
brilliant  one.  In  a  land  of  pioneer  traditions, 
they  have  the  stirring  opportunity  of  becoming 
pioneers  in  a  thousand  fields,  of  proving  worthy 
daughters  of  those  women  who  made  possible  the 
winning  of  the  West,  to  whom  Emerson  Hough  has 
paid  this  striking  tribute:  "The  chief  figure  of  the 
American  West,  the  figure  of  the  ages;  is  not  the 
long-haired,  fringed-legginged  man,  riding  a  raw- 
boned  pony,  but  the  gaunt  and  sad-faced  woman, 
following  her  lord  where  he  might  lead,  her  face 
hidden  in  the  same  ragged  sunbonnet  which  had 
crossed  the  Appalachians  and  the  Missouri  long 
before.  That  was  America,  my  brethren!  There 
was  the  seat  of  America's  wealth.  There  was  the 
great  romance  of  all  America  —  the  woman  and 
the  sunbonnet,  and  not,  after  all,  the  hero  with 
the  rifle  across  his  saddle-horn." 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  present  discussion 
women  are  of  vital  importance  to  the  America  of 
the  future  because  the  majority  of  women  are 
liberals.  Many  of  them  are  conservatives,  but 
comparatively  few  are  sincerely  and  thoughtfully 
revolutionary.  By  nature  they  desire  to  achieve 
their  ends  by  orderly  methods.  They  believe  in 
American  traditions  and  American  ways  of  getting 
results.  We  need  the  cooperation  of  liberal  women. 
It  will  raise  the  standards  of  business  and  public 
life  and  give  to  both  new  character  and  soundness. 

It  is  perhaps  more  vital  than  many  people  realize 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD    99 

that  enlightened  men  and  women  should  go  into 
politics.  What  is  our  situation  today?  What  do 
our  political  parties  stand  for?  Do  we  realize  how 
necessary  it  is  to  the  proper  functioning  of  proper 
government  that  parties  should  represent  definite 
human  tendencies? 

In  his  History  of  Political  Theory  Dr.  Simeon  D. 
Fess,  formerly  president  of  Antioch  College  and 
now  a  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio  says,  "The 
rational  differentiation  of  political  parties  lies  in 
the  constitution  of  the  mind.  .  .  .  Whether  a  man 
is  naturally  controversial  or  not,  he  ever  insists 
upon  the  recognition  of  his  rights.  In  political  af 
fairs  he  differs  most  frequently  from  his  fellow  upon 
method  rather  than  matter.  The  conservative,  who 
dislikes  agitation  for  its  own  sake,  is  ever  present. 
He  chooses  to  suffer  evils  rather  than  risk  the  in 
stitutions  in  the  attempt  to  correct  them.  Not  far 
from  him  usually  stands  the  radical,  who  enjoys 
agitation  and  who  has  a  propensity  for  righting 
wrongs  at  any  price.  .  .  .  Where  there  are  two 
controlling  parties,  one  of  them  will  be  radical  and 
the  other  conservative.  This  division  is  not  con 
sistent  since  it  most  frequently  occurs  that  the 
radical  today  may  become  the  conservative  to 
morrow,  and  vice  versa.  It  may  be  affirmed  with 
a  degree  of  accuracy  that  the  party  out  of  power  is 
the  radical,  but  becomes  conservative  when  placed 
in  power." 

A  generation  ago  Mr.  Wilson,  in  his  Congressional 


ioo  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Government  made  the  following  estimate  of  parties: 
"It  is  probably  also  this  lack  of  leadership  which 
gives  to  our  national  parties  their  curious  con 
glomerate  character.  It  would  seem  to  be  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  they  are  homogeneous 
only  in  name.  Neither  of  the  two  principal  parties 
is  of  one  mind  with  itself.  Each  tolerates  all  sorts 
of  difference  of  creed  and  variety  of  aim  within  its 
own  ranks.  Each  pretends  to  the  same  purposes 
and  permits  among  its  partisans  the  same  contra 
dictions  to  those  purposes.  .  .  .  They  are  like 
armies  without  officers,  engaged  upon  a  campaign 
which  has  no  great  cause  at  its  back.  Their  names 
and  traditions,  not  their  hopes  and  policy,  keep  them 
together."  At  the  present  time  we  cannot  detect 
one  single  major  issue  of  the  slightest  consequence 
to  the  public  which  is  the  exclusive  possession  of 
either  of  the  great  parties.  This  is  unfortunate 
in  a  period  which  tries  the  very  souls  of  men, 
when  enlightened  party  leadership  should  have  its 
greatest  opportunity. 

After  the  Civil  War,  which  had  been  conducted 
under  the  supreme  leadership  of  a  Republican  presi 
dent,  the  Republicans  remained  in  power  for  twenty 
years,  until  the  election  of  Cleveland.  The  present 
war  was  fought  under  the  leadership  of  a  Democrat; 
and  this  was  fortunate,  because  the  Democratic 
party  had  come  into  power  on  a  platform  which 
definitely  opposed  our  entrance  into  war,  so  that 
upon  the  election  of  the  Democrats  and  our  actual 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE ,0F': THE 

entrance  into  the  war,  the  Republicans  had  no  re 
course  but  to  support  the  action  taken,  which  they 
did,  from  dictates  of  both  patriotism  and  policy. 
It  is  impossible  to  intimate  that  either  party  is  in 
any  respect  associated  with  anything  unpatriotic. 
The  issue  of  the  next  campaign,  therefore,  seems 
to  be  shaping  itself  along  lines  of  personality  and 
tradition.  Men  are  Republicans  because  they  have 
always  been  Republicans,  and  the  Democrats  like 
wise,  especially  in  the  solid  South  where  voters  are 
only  just  beginning,  in  some  of  the  larger  cities,  to 
believe  that  in  national  elections  they  should  be 
permitted  to  vote  with  a  national  viewpoint  and  not 
be  condemned  to  perpetual  Democracy  because  of  a 
local  issue. 

Next  in  importance  to  tradition  seems  to  be 
personality  in  the  present  situation;  and  the  re 
sponsibility  of  liberals  is  to  see  to  it  if  possible  that 
the  man  elected  to  head  this  nation  in  the  four 
vital  years  which  will  follow  1920  is  a  man  who  has 
not  only  done  some  close  and  clear  thinking  upon 
the  vital  questions  of  the  day,  but  who  also  ac 
quired  a  sufficient  contact  through  personal  ex 
perience  with  practical  business  affairs  to  make  it 
likely  that  he  will  set  in  motion  the  machinery 
towards  producing  sound  and  lasting  results.  We 
need  not  simply  a  lover  of  America,  but  a  man  who 
will  not  require  four  years  to  learn  how  to  turn  his 
good  intentions  into  concrete  action.  We  cannot 
afford  to  elect  a  man  with  "a  vague  desire  to  make 


102  ;THE  :N£W  ;  FRONTIER 

the  world  better,  combined  with  absolute  ignorance 
of  how  this  is  to  be  done." 

There  has  long  been  a  demand  for  the  business 
man  in  politics,  and  certainly  the  war  developed  at 
the  head  of  some  great  department  or  commission 
in  Washington  a  man  with  sufficient  contact  with 
the  great  problems  of  production  as  they  bear  upon 
the  lives  of  our  own  people  and  the  people  abroad, 
and  whose  work  at  the  same  time  brought  him 
closely  enough  in  touch  with  the  homely  point  of 
view  of  the  average  citizen,  to  make  him  not  only 
an  ornament  but  a  practical  benefit,  as  leader  of 
the  nation.  It  is  not  sufficient  in  these  critical 
years  that  we  should  have  as  leader  in  Washington 
a  man  with  a  fine  upstanding  personality,  or  a 
great  orator,  or  a  good  soldier,  or  the  author  of  a 
notable  piece  of  legislation,  or  a  spectacular  obstruc 
tionist.  These  qualities  might  prove  useful.  But 
the  thinking  citizen  desires  a  man  who  knows  and 
does  not  pretend  to  scorn  the  rudiments  of  politics, 
the  machinery  which  must  be  used  by  a  president  if 
he  is  to  be  anything  more  than  a  well-wisher  of  the 
people.  A  man  is  needed  who  has  had  some  experi 
ence  in  the  actual  handling  of  the  major  problems,  eco 
nomic  and  social  in  character,  for  which  it  is  already 
evident  that  our  chief  executive  must  assume 
definite  personal  responsibility  between  1921  and 
1925. 

Whoever  this  man  is,  he  should  be  able  to  judge 
of  the  cause  and  effect  of  the  wave  of  unrest  which 


POLITICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  ROAD  103 

is  sweeping  over  the  world.  If  America  is  to  prosper, 
the  leader  who  wins  the  next  election  will  be  a  man 
with  a  national  sympathy,  and  not  a  class  or  sec 
tional  sympathy;  a  man  who  will  dare  to  stand  for 
the  principle  that  right  is  might.  He  will  not  try 
to  run  the  government  alone,  and  will  not  fear  to 
draw  around  him  men  as  strong  as  himself  nor  to  give 
them  freedom  of  action  to  carry  out  policies  agreed 
upon.  He  will  be  big  enough  to  consider  the  advice 
of  experienced  men,  whether  they  be  farmers  or 
labor  leaders  or  captains  of  industry,  and  grant 
special  favors  to  none.  He  will  not  talk  too  much 
either  about  ideals  or  about  action,  but  he  will  give 
daily  evidence  of  a  mastery  of  both. 

Such  a  man  exists.  It  would  be  a  tragedy  for 
America  in  this  turning  point  of  history  if  he  did 
not  exist.  He  is  a  liberal .  Neither  the  radicals  nor 
the  reactionaries  of  his  party  will  nominate  him. 
But  the  liberals  of  one  of  the  great  parties  can  do 
it,  and  never  in  our  history  was  the  concrete  and 
specific  need  for  the  united  action  of  American 
liberals  more  obviously  demanded. 

It  is  a  time  when  the  man  is  more  important  than 
the  party.  Party  platforms  are  vague;  the  need 
for  an  experienced  executive  in  the  White  House  is 
undeniable.  But  we  live  under  a  party  system.  The 
machinery  of  politics  is  necessary.  It  is  no  time  for 
men  to  avoid  party  enrollment  because  they  are 
more  idealistic  than  the  party  leaders.  Let  them 
roll  up  their  sleeves  and  get  into  the  game.  The 


104  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

only  effective  way  to  make  a  party  great  is  to  work 
and  build  within  the  party  itself.  A  radical  or  a 
conservative  who  enrolls  and  votes  according  to  his 
convictions  is  in  this  respect  a  better  American  than 
the  liberal  whose  judgment  may  be  sounder  but  who 
fails  to  enroll  and  to  vote. 


PUBLIC  OPINION  AND  THE   INDUSTRIAL 
PROBLEM 

THE  public  interest  will  inevitably  determine  the 
outcome  of  the  present  industrial  problem.  This 
chapter  offers  no  technical  solution  for  the  present 
unrest.  It  does  attempt  to  suggest  a  method  of 
approach  which  may  lead  to  a  solution. 

The  American  genius  for  the  practical  can  readily 
work  out,  in  each  one  of  the  numerous  technical 
branches  of  the  industrial  field,  a  plan  which  will 
be  just  and  economically  sound.  The  technical 
students  of  the  subject  have  a  wealth  of  ingenuity 
and  experience  to  aid  them.  The  craw  material 
of  industrial  peace  is  ready  to  hand.  What  is 
lacking  on  the  part  of  the  majority  of  workers  and 
employers  is  the  wrill  to  reach  a  conclusion.  They 
feel  farther  apart  than  they  are.  But  as  soon  as 
liberal  public  opinion  appreciates  fully  and  specifi 
cally  the  great  stake  which  the  people  of  America 
have  in  the  establishment  of  permanent  peace  in  the 
industrial  world,  it  will  increase  its  pressure  for  a 
settlement,  and  the  settlement  will  come. 

What  are  some  of  the  elements  in  the  situation 
around  which  controversy  turns?  What  does  the 
public  need  to  know  before  it  can  exert  its  irresistible 

105 


106  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

pressure    for    a    gradual,     common-sense    working 
solution,  a  liberal  solution? 

Ruskin  remarked  that  "in  general,  pride  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  great  mistakes."  It  would  be  interest 
ing  to  know  how  many  controversies  and  perhaps 
wars  would  have  been  avoided  in  the  history  of  the 
world  if  pride  had  not  stepped  in  to  prevent  in 
dividuals  or  nations  from  getting  together.  The 
pride  that  keeps  a  man  from  admitting  he  is  wrong 
is  something  that  requires  for  its  correction  the 
utmost  common-sense,  strength  of  character  and 
sense  of  humor,  all  operating  at  once.  This  kind 
of  pride  is  standing  in  the  way  of  results  today  as 
it  always  has  in  the  past.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of 
scores  of  strikes.  It  is  responsible  for  an  infinite 
variety  of  present-day  ills.  And  it  is  surprising  that 
this  should  be  so  when  Americans  perhaps  as  fully 
as  any  people  in  the  world,  value  and  applaud  the 
very  opposite  of  this  besetting  sin.  We  like  to  re 
peat  the  story  of  Lincoln  and  McClellan.  On  one 
occasion  when  the  General  had  shown  scant  respect 
for  his  President  and  Commander-in-Chief,  Lincoln, 
with  characteristic  absence  of  false  pride,  said,  "I 
will  hold  McClellan's  horse  for  him  if  he  will  only 


win  us  victories." 


The  problem  today  of  bringing  capital  and  labor 
together  is  a  problem  of  bringing  together  men, 
human  beings  capable  of  decision  and  understanding 
and  sympathy.  It  is  not  a  problem  for  persons  too 
proud  to  admit  the  other  man  has  some  right  on  his 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  107 

side.  And  the  victory  we  are  after  today  is  not  a 
victory  for  either  party  to  the  controversy,  but  for 
a  third  party,  the  public.  The  present  situation 
involves  a  fight  for  life;  but  it  is  not  a  fight  for  the 
life  of  capitalism  or  a  fight  for  the  life  of  labor;  it  is 
a  fight  for  the  life  of  America  and  American  in 
stitutions. 

The  tendencies  toward  suspicion  and  enmity  in 
our  industrial  life  have  at  times  manifested  them 
selves  in  a  shape  which  has  amounted  to  civil  war. 
There  has  been  bitterness,  and  even  bloodshed.  At 
times,  strikes  have  multiplied  until  the  sources  of 
food  and  other  bodily  comforts  of  large  groups  of 
our  people  have  been  seriously  crippled.  The  com 
ponent  halves  of  industry  have  fought  one  another 
at  the  expense  of  the  welfare  of  the  world. 

Colonel  Henry  Watterson  in  his  memoirs  of  a  long 
life  rich  in  its  contacts  with  all  phases  of  public 
affairs  brings  out  an  aspect  of  our  Civil  War  which 
is  pertinent  to  this  discussion.  Col.  Watterson  him 
self  fought  on  the  Confederate  side,  although,  as  he 
states,  he  was  opposed  to  both  slavery  and  disunion. 

"The  wise  men  of  both  sections,"  he  says,  "saw 
danger  ahead.  The  North  was  warned  that  the 
South  would  fight,  the  South,  that  if  it  did  it  went 
against  incredible  odds.  Neither  would  take  the 
warning.  Party  spirit  went  wild.  Extremism  had  its 
fling.  Thus  a  long,  bloody  and  costly  war  of  sections 
—  a  fraternal  war  if  there  ever  was  one  —  brought 
on  by  alternating  intolerance.  .  .  .  Anybody  can 


io8  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

now  see  that  the  slavery  problem  might  have 
had  a  less  ruinous  solution;  that  the  moral  issue 
might  have  been  compromised  from  time  to  time 
and  in  the  end  disposed  of.  Slave  labor  even  at  the 
South  had  shown  itself  illusory,  costly  and  clumsy. 
The  institution  untenable,  modern  thought  against 
it,  from  the  first  it  was  doomed. 

"But  the  extremists  would  not  have  it.  Each 
played  to  the  lead  of  the  other.  Whilst  V/endell 
Phillips  was  preaching  the  equality  of  races,  death 
to  the  slaveholders  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  at 
the  North,  William  Lowndes  Yancey  was  exclaiming 
that  cotton  was  king  at  the  South,  and,  to  establish 
these  false  propositions,  millions  of  good  Americans 
proceeded  to  cut  one  another's  throats. 

"The  moral  alike  for  governments  and  men  is: 
Keep  the  middle  of  the  road." 

At  the  end  of  a  great  war  in  which  the  men  of  the 
South  and  of  the  North  fought  side  by  side  on  the 
battlefields  of  France,  we  regard  that  other  great  war 
as  a  part  of  some  strange  and  distant  history.  But 
it  is  well  for  us  to  have  in  mind  that  other  elements 
of  passion  and  prejudice  still  lie  slumbering  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  even  men  who  are  bound  together  by 
generations  of  common  principles  and  common 
ideals.  No  one  will  deny  today  the  good  faith, 
either  of  the  leaders  of  South  Carolina  or  of  the  anti- 
slavery  agitators  of  Boston.  But  the  result  of  their 
failure  to  get  together  was  the  most  bloody  war 
which  the  world  had  ever  seen.  Good  faith,  then, 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  109 

is  not  enough.  There  must  be  patience,  also,  and 
readiness  to  concede.  This  must  be  the  American 
way,  if  it  is  to  be  said  that  we  have  learned  the 
lesson  of  a  most  bitter  conflict. 

The  issues  which  stand  in  the  way  of  industrial 
peace  today  cannot  safely  be  approached  with 
prejudice.  There  is  nothing  uncompromisable  be 
tween  the  demands  of  labor  and  the  reservations 
of  capital,  except  where  either  the  ^demands  of 
labor  or  the  reservations  of  capital  prove  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  American  form  of  govern 
ment.  The  teaching  of  this  lesson  by  liberals  is 
rendered  difficult  by  the  many  professional  agitators 
and  organizers  whose  last  desire  it  is  to  bring  about 
in  the  Ajnerican  nation  an  orderly,  fair  and  satis 
factory  solution  of  pressing  public  problems.  These 
individuals  thrive  upon  disorder  and  agitation. 
Their  name  is  agitator,  their  profession  is  agitation. 
If  unrest  were  to  cease  they  would  have  to  do  a  day's 
honest  work.  And  while  here  again  it  may  be  unfair 
to  say  that  they  are  not  acting  in  good  faith,  it  is 
necessary  to  say  that  the  pendulum  of  their  minds 
has  swung  to  an  extreme  which  makes  them  danger 
ous  members  of  society,  and  if  this  Republic  is  to  go 
forward  in  the  middle  of  the  road  toward  sane  living 
and  opportunity  and  happiness,  we  cannot  be  guided 
by  persons  who  are  still,  as  regards  their  method  of 
getting  results,  closely  affiliated  in  spirit  with  the 
anthropoid  ape  or  the  cave  man. 

It  is  clear  that  the  parties  to  the  controversy  do 


I  io  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

not  understand  each  other.  Any  person  experienced 
in  such  matters  knows  that  a  given  group  of  labor 
representatives  is  certain  to  be  wholly  misinformed 
upon  many  essential  features  of  business  policy  and 
organization,  and  any  given  group  of  business  mer 
is  sure  to  number  several  who  are  wholly  uninformed 
as  to  the  real  causes  of  industrial  misunderstanding 
from  the  labor  standpoint. 

Enlightened  labor  leaders  believe  in  fair  play  and 
in  the  inviolability  of  contracts.  And  yet,  when 
radicals  are  in  the  saddle,  union  members  cannot  be 
held  by  their  leaders  to  the  contracts  as  made. 
There  are  many  things  about  labor  unionism  which 
are  admitted  to  be  in  a  tentative  condition  and 
•which  are  capable  of  adaptation  to  the  needs  of 
productive  industrialism,  provided  the  disease-spots 
of  radicalism  be  cut  out  and  a  sufficiently  representa 
tive  group  of  labor  leaders  assembled  to  work  out  a 
solution  in  cooperation  with  employers  of  labor. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  an  irreducible  minimum 
of  common  sense  and  economic  necessity  which 
must  be  insisted  upon  by  business  men  if  productive 
industry  is  to  go  on.  For  this  irreducible  minimum 
business  men  of  the  country  are  willing  to  fight  to 
the  last  ditch  and  with  everything  they  have  in 
them,  with  the  facts  in  their  full  significance  revealed 
to  the  general  public  to  whom  the  employers  and 
labor  are  alike  responsible.  The  great  overshadow 
ing  danger  of  the  present  situation,  so  tragic  because 
so  superficial,  is  that  some  business  men,  irritated 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  in 

and  deeply  concerned  by  radical  attacks,  have  had 
the  good  old  American  fighting  spirit  aroused  in 
them  and  are  directing  their  attack  on  labor  unions, 
whereas  their  real  enemy  is  not  labor  unionism,  as 
such,  but  rather  the  radical  elements  which  are  fol 
lowing  the  false  standard  of  "something  for  nothing," 
with  the  battle-cry  of  "rule  or  ruin." 

Unionism  is  not  the  issue.  Our  laws  permit  it. 
And  despite  its  striking  failure  to  control  its  own 
people,  under  proper  guidance  it  may  be  a  powerful 
force  for  justice.  Take  for  example  a  situation  like 
the  printers'  troubles  in  New  York  in  the  fall  of 
1919.  A  fair  statement  of  the  main  points  in  this 
somewhat  complicated  case  seems  to  be  that  the 
international  unions,  representing  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  were  as  firmly  committed  as 
any  group  of  men  could  be  to  the  maintenance  of 
contracts  on  a  basis  which  would  enable  the  employ 
ing  printers  to  buy  paper  and  enter  into  agreements 
for  printing  books  and  carrying  on  their  business 
with  reasonable  profit.  In  other  words,  the  em 
ployers  and  the  union  leaders  had  arrived  at  a 
bargain  which  was,  under  the  circumstances,  satis 
factory  to  both;  and  then  came  the  radical  element 
within  some  of  the  unions  themselves,  refusing  to 
abide  by  the  agreements  reached,  insisting  upon 
immediate  radical  increases  of  salary,  immediate 
shorter  hours.  In  addition,  they  declined  to  be 
bound  by  any  definite  agreement  which  would  make 
it  possible  for  the  business  men  for  whom  they  were 


112  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

working  to  make  contracts  and  to  purchase  material, 
an  agreement  vital  to  the  public  interest  and  to 
the  workers  themselves  whose  existence  depends 
upon  the  success  of  the  industry.  In  this  situation 
the  international  leaders  without  hesitation  took 
away  the  union  cards  from  the  insurgent  employees 
and  formed  new  unions.  They  stated  unequivocally 
that  they  stood  for  fair  dealing  and  the  maintenance 
of  contracts,  and  pointed  out  with  no  little  show  of 
reason  that  they  were  in  a  better  position  to  treat 
with  the  radical  element  than  were  the  employing; 
printers  themselves. 

Years  ago  Theodore  Roosevelt  said  that  the 
American  people  were  not  opposed  to  trusts,  bu,: 
only  to  bad  trusts.  Today  most  business  men  are 
not  opposed  to  unionism  but  only  to  bad  unionism. 
By  bad  unionism  is  meant  the  aim  of  a  class  to 
further  the  rights  of  a  class,  by  argument  if  possible, 
but  by  force  if  necessary,  and  without  regard  to  the 
rights  of  the  people  as  a  whole. 

Is  this  a  fair  statement  of  the  attitude  of  business  ? 
Are  the  leaders  of  American  business  fair  and  liberal? 
If  so  the  public  should  know  it.  The  interests  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole  at  this  time  call  for  the  elimination 
of  the  age-long  disease  to  which  the  business  world 
has  been  susceptible,  of  allowing  its  views  to  be 
represented  by  a  few  outspoken  ultra-conservatives 
whose  statements  are  quickly  taken  up  and  flaunted 
by  the  radicals,  and  to  a  large  extent  even  by  the 
liberals,  as  representative  of  the  attitude  of  business 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  113 

as  a  whole.  A  generation  ago  a  business  leader  was 
quoted  (and  the  facts  seem  to  indicate,  misquoted) 
as  having  exclaimed,  "The  Public  be  Damned!'' 
As  a  result  of  the  wide  dissemination  of  this  phrase 
millions  of  people  honestly  believed  for  years  that 
the  majority  of  business  men  entertained  that  point 
of  view.  There  are  far  too  many  people  who  believe 
that  attitude  is  maintained  today;  whereas  it  often 
seems  that  the  rights  of  the  public  are  more  fully 
taken  into  consideration  today  even  by  conservative 
business  men  than  they  are,  by-and-large,  by 
radical  labor  leaders.  It  would  certainly  seem 
within  reason  to  quote  Messrs.  Foster  and  Fitz- 
patrick  as  having  said,  "The  Public  be  Damned!" 

The  fact  is,  we  must  get  away  from  all  this  calling 
of  names  and  imputing  of  motives.  Before  any 
far-reaching  and  permanent  readjustment  in  the  in 
dustrial  world  can  be  looked  for  there  is  a  funda 
mental  necessity,  first  of  all,  for  a  different  attitude 
on  both  sides.  There  are  too  many  chips  on  too 
many  shoulders.  The  correct  fundamental  attitude 
of  mind  and  heart  is  as  subtle  as  it  is  important.  It 
is  the  factor  most  frequently  ignored  in  current  dis 
cussions.  It  is  not  in  itself  a  solution;  but  it  is  the 
open  door,  and  the  only  door  to  a  solution.  The 
misconceptions  in  the  public  mind  regarding  both 
capital  and  labor  are  so  stubbornly  adhered  to,  so 
widely  accepted,  that  their  continued  existence 
would  form  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  an  era  of 
good  feeling.  So  long  as  a  very  large  group  of  people 


H4  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

believe  that  Wall  Street,  for  example,  or  business 
as  a  whole,  is  entirely  self-seeking,  just  so  long  will 
it  be  impossible  for  leaders  of  industry  to  reach  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  men  on  a  basis  of  sympathetic 
understanding.  So  long  as  radical  leaders  are  per 
mitted  to  dominate  the  councils  of  labor  and  give 
the  public  the  idea  that  their  plighted  word  is  a 
mere  mask  covering  a  greedy  opportunism  which 
lies  in  wait  to  throw  contracts  to  the  wind  and 
upset  the  course  of  business  because  the  "going  is 
good,"  so  long  will  it  be  impossible  to  get  business 
leaders  to  regard  the  position  of  labor  with  the 
confidence  .and  sympathy  and  open-mindednes:; 
which  will  lead  to  industrial  democracy.  Industrial 
democracy  cannot  be  brought  about  by  the  weapon;; 
of  autocracy.  The  will  to  agree  has  been  lacking, 
and  without  that,  the  most  carefully  thought  out 
understandings  and  contracts  must  rest  upon  a 
basis  of  sand.  Without  that,  conferences  will  be  a 
waste  of  time  for  both  sides. 

Some  progress  is  being  made.  The  study  and 
analysis  being  carried  on  by  the  colleges  is  helping 
to  bring  about  a  common  body  of  facts  and  princi 
ples,  based  on  wide  research.  Industrial  engineers 
are  doing  splendid  work.  Public  conferences  under 
governmental  and  private  auspices  serve  to  focus 
public  thought  on  the  problem.  Largely  through 
the  influence  of  Herbert  Hoover  the  Second  Indus 
trial  Conference,  held  in  Washington,  made  a  report 
on  March  6,  1920,  which  is  the  fairest  and  most 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  115 

thorough  liberal  document  on  the  industrial  problem 
yet  put  forth,  And  all  the  while,  the  normal  course 
of  progress  in  actual  plants  is  helping  to  furnish 
examples  of  capital  and  labor  united  to  produce 
the  necessaries  of  life  with  American  skill,  energy 
and  full  cooperation.  Here  and  there  a  plant  is* 
being  conducted  along  cooperative  lines.  These 
laboratories  of  industrial  progress  are  useful.  But 
they  are  too  exceptional  to  be  an  answer  to 
the  nation-wide  failure  to  get  together  which 
periodically  puts  the  consumer  in  a  state  of  mind 
bordering  upon  despair.  Unrest  is  so  contagious 
that  in  prosperous  times  the  disease  spreads  and 
even  isolated  factories  organized  on  a  basis  of 
industrial  cooperation  are  drawn  into  the  general 
turmoil.  The  average  man  reads  stories  of  actual 
experiences  such  as  "How  Jim  and  Bill  Manage 
Themselves,"  "How  My  Men  Help  Me  Manage"; 
and  the  next  day  he  reads  of  a  score  of  strikes  called 
or  threatened,  involving  his  daily  bread  or  other 
essentials  to  his  health  and  comfort,  and  somehow, 
the  titles  sound  hollow  to  him. 

Evidently  the  normal  course  of  industrial  evolution 
is  not  enough.  We  need  the  working  solution  of 
problems  in  a  thousand  factories;  but  this  is  not 
sufficient  if  a  thousand  more  are  closed.  Only  when 
public  opinion  is  convinced  that  reasonable  conces 
sions  and  adjustments  have  been  made  by  both 
sides  and  that  both  of  the  integral  parts  of  the 
working  machinery  that  keeps  the  public  alive,  are 


ii6  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

acting  in  full  understanding,  then  only  will  this, 
powerful  force  be  brought  to  bear  with  full  effective 
ness  against  extreme  or  unjust  action  on  the  par; 
of  either.  Conferences  and  conventions  will  no- 
furnish  a  solution.  Technical  analysis  and  industrial 
engineering  will  not  solve  it.  But  all  these  per 
sistently  working  together,  with  the  deep  desire  to 
solve  it,  cannot  fail  to  do  it.  Nothing  can  solv-5 
it  if  the  spirit  of  suspicion  and  enmity  dominates 
every  approach  to  the  problem. 

We  might  as  well  face  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of 
glib  Utopians,  the  problem  is  an  extremely  difficult 
one  involving  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  economic 
and  human  factors. 

What  do  the  workers  want  from  the  employers? 
On  Labor  Day,  1919,  a  statement  professing  to  em 
body  the  aspirations  and  desires  of  American  Labor 
and  quoting  an  official  high  in  organized  labor  circles, 
was  issued  by  the  Amejican  Alliance  for  Labor  and 
Democracy.  The  statement  was  as  follows:  "As  a 
result  of  the  great  world  war  the  labor  problem  has 
been  more  prominently  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  people  of  our  country  than  ever  before.  To 
prevent  this  growing  unrest  that  is  leading  many  to 
the  doctrines  of  Bolshevism  is  the  responsibility  of 
everyone  of  us  who  believes  that  sane  methods 
rather  than  insane  should  be  applied.  How  is  this 
to  be  accomplished?  The  old  idea  of  a  living  wage 
will  have  to  be  revised  so  that  every  comfort  of  life 
consistent  with  the  station  of  the  worker  shall  be 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  117 

enjoyed  by  him  and  his  dependents.  Life's  comforts 
must  be  graded  upward  in  the  future.  Labor  be 
lieves  that  it  is  entitled  to  this,  as  it  did  most  to 
save  the  world  for  democracy.  American  living 
standards  should  not  be  jeopardized  by  those  of  any 
other  nation.  Unfair  competition,  either  to  business 
interests  or  to  labor,  must  be  prevented.  If  the 
idea  of  social  and  economic  justice  to  the  workers 
receives  due  consideration  I  feel  sure  that  the  danger 
of  the  spread  of  Bolshevism  will  be  reduced  to  a 
minimum,  if  not  entirely  removed.  This  doctrine, 
as  we  know,  thrives  upon  industrial  unrest,  and  by 
removing  the  cause  the  disease  will  soon  disappear. 
We  have  saved  the  world  for  democracy;  now  let 
us  save  democracy  for  the  world. 

"Bolshevism  is  an  impossible  doctrine.  If  the 
workers  of  this  or  any  other  country  are  not  to 
receive  social  and  economic  justice  in  any  other 
way  than  through  a  revolutionary  movement  that 
would  destroy  government,  then  it  is  best  that  the 
world  should  cease  to  be  rather  than  to  live  under 
the  conditions  proposed  by  the  doctrines  of  Bol 
shevism.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  that  the  organized 
labor  movement  of  America  should  be  left  to  cope 
alone  with  this  industrial  unrest.  It  can  be  dealt 
with  by  a  triangle  of  government,  capital,  and  labor 
working  in  full  cooperation  with  each  other  and 
without  force,  as  Bolshevism  cannot  be  cured  by 
killing  or  clubbing.  Improved  industrial  life  and 
the  removal  of  many  of  the  oppressive  conditions 


nS  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

that  workers  are  living  under  will  successfully  meet 
the  situation.  It  will  not  only  remove  the  extreme 
radical  tendencies,  but  in  my  opinion,  is  the  solution 
of  the  Americanization  of  the  foreign  element  and 
will  make  them  fully  understand  what  America  and 
American  citizenship  in  their  fullest  sense  really 
stand  for." 

This  statement  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  liberal 
point  of  view.  It  is  a  significant  statement,  if  it  is 
at  all  representative  of  the  liberal  labor  viewpoint, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  it  is  not.  It  spe 
cifically  disavows  the  right  to  speak  for  the  extreme 
radical  group;  but  it  may  fairly  be  said  to  represent 
the  majority  of  labor  opinion. 

The  truth  appears  to  be  that  in  America  labor  is 
not  at  heart  revolutionary.  On  the  other  hand 
labor  is  easily  led  into  disquieting  excesses  for  the 
simple  reason  that  its  leaders  have  not  set  before 
themselves  or  the  public  clearly  and  fairly  what  the 
workers  really  want.  As  a  result,  the  workers  are 
constantly  being  led  into  making  demands  which  are 
unreasonable  because  the  leaders  of  labor  cannot 
unite  on  a  fair  and  reasonable  platform,  or  in  fact, 
upon  any  platform  whatever.  Labor  is  using  the 
weapon  of  last  resort  before  giving  other  measures 
the  utmost  chance;  and  the  public  interest,  the 
welfare  of  the  great  mass  of  men,  women  and  children 
of  this  country,  demands  that  conference  and  arbi 
tration  should  in  each  instance  of  dispute  be  given 
the  most  exhaustive  trial  before  strikes  are  called. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  119 

The  freedom  with  which  the  strike  has  recently  been 
resorted  to,  with  its  attendant  ill-feeling  and  often 
bloodshed,  is  the  greatest  single  obstacle  to  sanity 
and  clear  thinking  on  both  sides.  The  strike  connotes 
force;  it  stimulates  the  imagination  of  conservative 
men  to  conjure  up]  the  over-turn  of  the  economic 
structure,  the  institutions  of  government,  and  even 
the  home  itself.  And  this  breeds  a  desperate  feeling 
of  resistance,  of  righting  back,  of  grim  determination 
to  hold  on  to  those  things  which  are  most  sacred  in 
life.  First  of  all,  a  great  deal  of  patience  is  needed 
on  both  sides;  and  the  will  to  get  together.  No 
rules  and  regulations,  nor  all  the  constitutions  and 
covenants  in  the  world,  will  avail  unless  both  sides 
feel  a  determination  to  get  together  for  the  common 
good,  instead  of  setting  up  fixed  objects  to  be  gained 
at  any  cost,  and  maintaining  a  grim  "nothing  to 
arbitrate"  spirit. 

What  does  labor  want  ?  Whether  its  demands  are 
fair  or  practicable  from  the  standpoint  of  the  public 
remains  to  be  seen.  But  it  is  vitally  important  that 
both  capital  and  the  public  should  follow  in  detail 
just  what  the  demands  are  which  are  crystallizing 
in  labor  circles.  A  fair  statement  of  their  position 
would  seem  to  embody  the  following  line  of  thought: 
It  is  not  wages  and  hours  which  underlie  the  present 
restlessness.  It  is  a  growing  self -consciousness,  an 
increasing  desire  for  a  part  in  the  really  glorious 
achievement  of  America,  a  wish,  possibly  only  half- 
realized,  to  be  more  consciously  active  and  self-reliant 


120  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

participants  in  the  building  up  of  the  nearest  approach 
the  world  has  yet  seen  to  a  land  of  human  freedom. 

Labor  wants  the  cards  laid  on  the  table.  The  men 
in  the  mill  want  to  know  what  profits  are  being  made. 
This  does  not  mean  that  executives  are  not  to  receive 
hundred  thousand  dollar  salaries  when  they  earn 
them.  But  it  does  mean  that  the  men  who  help 
to  produce  the  goods  want  to  know  that  all  those  who 
share  in  the  profits  get  a  fair  share  only,  on  the 
basis  of  the  work  they  do  or  the  capital  they  lend. 
Translating  the  actual  balance  sheet  into  simple 
language  that  can  be  understood  by  every  worker, 
will  do  much  in  removing  suspicion  and  misunder 
standing,  and  consequent  discontent  and  suscepti 
bility  to  radical  agitation.  Ignorance  on  the  part 
of  the  workers  is  the  agitators'  greatest  single 
source  of  strength. 

The  next  point  to  make  definite  is  that  labor  does 
not  want  to  abolish  brains,  initiative,  imagination, 
organization  ability,  expert  skill,  salesmanship,  clever 
advertising.  In  the  words  of  a  student  and  lucid 
exponent  of  this  problem,  Mr.  Alfred  E.  Zimmern, 
"Industrial  democracy  .  .  .  does  not  mean  handing 
over  the  control  of  matters  requiring  expert  knowl 
edge  to  a  mass  of  people  who  are  not  equipped  with 
that  knowledge.  Under  any  system  of  management 
there  must  be  division  of  labor;  there  must  be 
those  who  know  all  about  one  subject  and  are  best 
fitted  to  deal  with  it.  Democracy  can  be  just  as 
successful  as  any  other  form  of  government  in  em- 


THE  INDUSTRIAL   PROBLEM  121 

ploying  experts.  Nor  does  democratic  control,  in 
the  present  stage  at  any  rate,  involve  a  demand  for 
control  over  what  may  be  called  the  commercial 
side  of  management  —  the  buying  of  the  raw  ma 
terial,  the  selling  of  the  finished  article,  and  all  the 
exercise  of  trained  judgment  and  experience  that 
are  brought  to  bear  by  business  men  on  these  ques 
tions.  ...  At  present  at  any  rate  the  workers 
demand  not  a  voice  in  the  business,  but  control 
over  the  conditions  under  which  their  own  daily 
work  is  done.  It  is  a  demand  for  control  over  one 
side,  but  that  the  most  important  side  because  it 
is  the  human  side,  of  the  industrial  process." 

Paul  V.  Kellog  and  Arthur  Gleason  in  British 
Labor  and  The  War  reach  the  same  conclusion 
with  regard  to  the  new  spirit  of  labor:  ''  The 
Workers'  control  movement  is  not  attempting 
to  commandeer  factories  and  put  them  into  the 
hands  of  the  workers,  like  the  Russian  Soviets.  It 
is  going  ahead  one  step  at  a  time,  first  administering 
workshop  conditions,  then  sharing  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  factory  process.  It  is  not  trying  to 
extemporize  executive  experience  over  night.  It 
acts  inside  its  area  of  competence,  but  the  change  it 
is  effecting  in  the  organization  of  industry  is  funda 
mental.  .  .  .  Labor  is  developing  something  different 
from  the  old-time  class-conscious  socialism.  ...  It  is 
an  experimental  attitude  toward  life.  The  spirit  of 
its  quest  is  springy  and  buoyant  and  impudent.  An 
elan  is  being  recaptured,  lost  for  one  hundred  years 


122  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  the  factory  system.  From  the  ranks  of  the  re 
turned  soldiers  and  the  mobilized  shops  new  leaders 
will  spring  up,  and  they  will  be  young." 

What  is  wanted  is  a  relationship  which  recognizes 
the  rights  of  all  parties  in  the  industrial  world, 
which  is  awake  to  the  fact  that  the  happiness  of 
mankind  is  not  based  upon  money  alone,  and  that 
most  men  will  work  harder  and  for  less  money  if 
they  are  working  partly  for  themselves  than  they 
will  if  they  are  working  wholly  for  someone  else. 
Our  problem  therefore  is  to  adapt  the  system  based 
purely  on  wages  to  a  new  order  in  which  there  is 
added  a  human,  democratic,  conscious  participation 
by  all  concerned.  If  this  is  done,  the  days  of  union 
ism,  belligerent  and  wholly  unmindful  of  the  public 
interest,  will  be  numbered.  This  viewpoint,  which 
is  coming  to  be  accepted  with  singular  unanimity  by 
thinking  men  the  world  over,  is  well  expressed  in  a 
paragraph  of  the  once  famous  Whitley  Report  which 
was  adopted  by  the  British  War  Cabinet  in  October, 
1917,  "as  part  of  the  policy  which  they  hope  to  see 
carried  into  effect  in  the  field  of  industrial  recon 
struction/'  The  statement  is  as  follows:  "We  have 
thought  it  well  to  refrain  from  making  suggestions 
or  offering  opinions  with  regard  to  such  matters  as 
profit-sharing,  co-partnership,  or  particular  systems 
of  wages,  etc.  .  .  .  We  are  convinced  .  .  .  that  a 
permanent  improvement  in  the  relations  between 
employers  and  employed  must  be  founded  upon 
something  other  than  a  cash  basis.  What  is  wanted 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  123 

is  that  the  work-people  should  have  a  greater  oppor 
tunity  of  participating  in  the  discussion  about  and 
adjustment  of  those  parts  of  industry  by  which  they 
are  most  affected. " 

In  America  the  majority  of  liberal  men  are  think 
ing  along  the  same  lines.  Herbert  Hoover,  probably 
the  soundest  and  most  effective  exponent  in  America 
today  of  the  liberal  viewpoint  in  industry,  in  a  recent 
address  said:  "This  social  ferment  .  .  .  grows  funda 
mentally  out  of  a  yearning  for  higher  standards  of 
living,  demand  for  economic  change  in  the  status 
of  labor.  ...  It  appears  to  me  that  any  solution  of 
this  problem  must  go  deeper  than  questions  of 
strikes,  lock-outs  or  arbitration,  for  these  pre 
suppose  a  conflict  of  interest.  We  have  got  to  go 
sooner  or  later  to  the  root  of  this  difficulty.  There  is 
no  solution  short  of  community  of  interest.  We 
must  begin  by  creating,  somehow  and  somewhere, 
a  solidarity  of  interest  in  every  section  of  the  people 
conducting  our  industrial  machine.  The  worker, 
the  administrator  and  the  employer  are  absolutely 
interdependent  on  one  another  in  this  task  of  secur 
ing  the  maximum  production  and  a  better  division 
of  its  results.  It  is  hopeless  to  secure  a  solution  if 
we  are  to  set  these  people  up  as  different  classes 
fighting  with  each  other." 

Will  H.  Hays,  Chairman  of  the  Republican  Na 
tional  Committee,  puts  it  this  way:  "It  is  simply  a 
matter  of  Roosevelt's  'square  deal' -- exact  justice 
for  labor,  exact  justice  for  capital,  and  exact  justice 


124  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

for  the  public,  the  third  side  of  the  triangle,  which 
must  not  be  lost  sight  of.  To  that  end  we  must 
develop  a  reasonable  method  for  honest  and  efficient 
labor  to  acquire  an  interest  in  the  business  to  which 
labor  is  expected  to  give  its  best  efforts." 

The  men  who  are  most  anxious,  however,  to  reduce 
the  theory  of  industrial  democracy  to  a  practical 
basis  which  will  stimulate  production  and  guarantee 
human  existence  are  obstructed  by  the  attitude  of 
the  radicals  who  want  not  a  share  in  the  business 
but  all  the  business.  These  radicals  will  not  con 
sider  any  compromise,  based  upon  reason  and 
justice,  and  fair  to  both  sides.  The  liberals  among 
business  and  labor  leaders  could  get  together  if  they 
would  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  But 
the  proposals  of  the  radicals  go  beyond  what  we  in 
American  today  are  justified  in  regarding  as  reason 
able.  As  one  writer  has  said:  "If  organized  labor  is 
conceded  the  right  to  tie  up  all  the  industry  and 
commerce  of  the  country  at  its  own  will  our  form  of 
government  will  have  been  changed.  Authority 
over  the  community  life  will  have  passed  from  the 
regularly  elected  representatives  of  the  people  to 
the  labor  organizations.  The  public  wants  labor  to 
have  a  fair  show  ...  but  not  supreme  power.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  first  principle  of  organized  society  that 
everybody  shall  be  equal  before  the  law,  and  that 
no  individual  shall  put  his  personal  judgment  above 
the  law.  The  overthrow  of  this  principle  would  mean 
the  destruction  of  order  and  government.  The  rule 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  125 

of  reason  and  of  the  ballot-box  would  be  over 
thrown,  and  society  would  lapse  back  to  the  rule  of 
force." 

This  aspect  of  the  problem  involves  not  labor 
and  capital  alone,  but  the  very  fundamentals  of  our 
national  life.  If  one  class  is  to  rule  autocratically, 
it  is  a  situation  calling  not  for  conferences  on  in 
dustrial  cooperation  but  rather  a  new  Constitution. 

Before  proceeding  farther  it  may  be  of  interest  to 
present  an  outside  view  of  our  industrial  situation. 
Not  long  ago  some  of  the  views  expressed  in  this 
chapter  were  discussed  with  an  able  foreigner 
temporarily  in  America  as  a  delegate  to  the  Inter 
national  Labor  Conference.  He  was  for  many  years 
in  Washington  at  his  Legation,  has  traveled  all  over 
the  United  States,  and  is  a  keen  and  discriminating 
student  of  our  people  and  institutions.  His  view 
point  may  be  briefly  paraphrased  as  follows: 

"The  American  people  are  facing  a  great  crisis. 
Your  labor,  while  better  off  than  labor  in  some 
countries  of  Europe,  has  long  ceased  to  be  contented 
with  the  wage  system.  The  average  American 
laborer  is  not  discontented  with  his  wages  or  hours 
of  work;  but  whether  or  not  the  rank  and  file  are 
fully  conscious  of  the  fact,  it  is  none  the  less  true 
that  the  wage  system  has  ceased  to  satisfy.  Some 
form  of  industrial  self-government  must  come. 
Leaders  of  labor  and  enlightened  capitalists  recognize 
it,  and  the  fundamental  unrest,  going  to  the  very 
roots  of  the  labor  groups,  organized  and  unorganized, 


126  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

proves  that  no  tinkering  will  meet  the  needs  of  the 
situation. 

"Your  business  men  as  a  class  are  fundamentally 
more  democratic  in  sympathy,  or  potentially  so, 
than  any  similar  group  in  the  world.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  they  are  busier,  they  are  under  a  greater 
pressure  to  get  results.  The  very  extent  of  your 
problem  carries  with  it  a  great  pressure  upon  the 
average  business  executive  and  makes  it  harder  to 
induce  him  to  take  time  to  consider  some  of  the 
phases  of  the  industrial  problem  which  now  call  for 
immediate  action  if  most  serious  consequences  are 
to' be  avoided.  The  word  'results'  must  take  on  a 
broader  meaning. 

"Many  of  the  great  crises  of  history  have  arisen 
because  someone  was  too  late.  We  fear  our  own 
business  men  have  waited  too  long  and  that  matters 
will  go  to  extremes  before  a  fair  working  basis  can 
be  established.  In  your  country  I  believe  the 
existence  of  Americanism,  that  fundamental  faith 
in  yourselves,  that  chronic  optimism  amounting  to 
an  almost  child-like  belief  that  the  right  and  fair 
thing  will  prevail,  that  love  of  your  country  and  its 
institutions  which  really  mean  so  much  to  so  many 
of  your  people,  may  still  serve  to  avert  the  danger 
that  seems  to  be  sweeping  across  the  world  from 
Russia.  This  Americanism  is  unique.  There  is 
nothing  that  quite  corresponds  to  it  anywhere  else 
in  the  world.  It  may  keep  your  people  sane  until 
ail  classes  see  the  need  of  definite  corrective  action. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  127 

But  nothing  will  avail  you  long  unless  you  set  up 
against  radicalism  a  great  wall  of  fairly  treated 
men  and  women.  These  workers,  the  backbone  of 
your  industries,  have  reached  a  point  where  wages 
no  longer  satisfy  them,  and  only  a  feeling  that  they 
have  some  voice  in  determining  the  conditions  under 
which  they  work  will  ever  bring  about  contentment. 

"There  is  the  same  voice  of  destiny  in  this  move 
ment  the  world  over  that  exists  in  your  country, 
except  that  your  greater  democracy  here  has  given 
your  workers  a  greater  patriotism  and  has  held  back 
their  consciousness  that  democracy  in  industry  did 
not  exist.  But  even  in  America  it  is  coming.  It  is 
as  sure  as  your  national  independence  was  sure  to 
the  discerning  eye  long  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  as  the  freedom  of  your  negroes 
seemed  inevitable  to  the  far-seeing  student  long 
before  1864.  Both  those  great  events  involved  vast 
differences  of  opinion;  both  involved  bloodshed 
which  might  have  been  avoided.  The  world  is 
looking  to  America,  the  home  of  liberty  and  de 
mocracy,  to  lead  the  way  in  the  greatest  problem 
of  all  time,  the  adjustment  of  the  conditions  of 
production  at  a  time  when  millions  will  die  if  that 
adjustment  is  interfered  with.  Is  it  too  late?" 

Is  it  too  late?  Can  we  get  together?  If  we  can 
assume  that  the  men  who  represent  both  the  labor 
and  the  capital  viewpoints  in  the  present  industrial 
controversy  are  loyal  Americans  and  believe  in  the 
traditions  oi  America,  it  does  not  seem  too  much  to 


128  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

hope  that  if  they  will  make  the  same  organized 
effort  to  get  together  that  they  make  on  the  one 
hand  to  organize  great  business  interests  and  on  the 
other  to  organize  millions  of  men  into  labor  unions 
it  will  be  perfectly  feasible  to  bring  about  a  working 
solution.  The  brains  and  ability  to  get  together  are 
here;  but  the  determination  to  agree  has  not  yet 
crystallized.  Perhaps  we  must  wait  until  the  vague 
desire  for  industrial  adjustment  in  the  mind  of  the 
average  man  who  has  waited  so  long  and  patiently 
for  the  doctors  to  agree,  gives  place  to  a  demand  for 
industrial  cooperation  and  peace.  If  a  nation-wide 
poll  were  taken  at  the  present  time  it  would  be 
overwhelmingly  evident  that  the  great  majority  of 
Americans  believe  that  capital  and  labor  can  well 
get  together  somewhere  between  a  complete  socializa 
tion  of  all  industry  and  a  complete  individual  and  com 
petitive  license.  It  is  also  true  that  the  situation  calls 
for  an  agreement  without  an  undue  amount  of  time 
being  devoted  to  the  luxury  of  listening  to  the  expres 
sion  of  either  radical  or  reactionary  points  of  view 
while  the  world  is  threatened  with  disease  and  starva 
tion  because  of  the  falling  off  in  the  production  of 
the  necessaries  of  life. 

The  necessity  of  production  is  the  phase  of  the 
situation  which  makes  it  one  of  permanent  public 
concern.  There  are  already  too  many  people  in  the 
world  to  be  provided  for  adequately  by  the  bare 
resources  of  nature.  Population  grows  at  a  rapid 
pace,  and  while  during  the  past  century  and  a 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  129 

puarter  the  development  of  new  natural  resources 
and  of  new  technical  arts  has  increased  faster  than 
population,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  in  most  parts 
of  the  world,  population  is  actually  pressing  close 
upon  the  minimum  of  subsistence,  and,  for  a  con 
siderable  part  of  the  world,  population  is  too  great 
for  comfort.  In  the  United  States,  the  richest 
country  of  all  the  world,  there  is  still  not  enough  to 
go  around.  We  have  felt  this  increasingly  during 
the  war,  but  it  was  true  before  the  war.  Approxi 
mately  ninety  million  people  of  the  United  States, 
exclusive  of  outlying  possessions,  received  an  income 
in  1910  of  somewhat  more  than  $30,000,000,000, 
including  all  wages,  interest,  profits  and  rents.  It 
is  estimated  that  about  $2,500,000,000  of  this  was 
taken  for  the  support  of  Federal,  State  and  local 
governments.  At  least  $4,000,000,000  more  was 
taken  for  additions  to  the  productive  equipment 
or  capital  of  the  country.  This  leaves  not  over 
$24,000,000,000  for  current  consumption  during  the 
year,  which  gives  $260  per  person  or  $1300  a  year 
for  a  family  of  five.  The  richest  country  in  the  whole 
world  is  not  very  rich. 

It  must  be  evident  that  any  solution  of  the  problem 
which  presupposes  a  desire  for  the  life  of  the  race 
must  be  predicated  upon  work.  Certain  economic 
truths  must  prevail  in  the  end.  A  dollar  must  be 
earned.  No  group  of  men,  no  matter  how  much 
power  they  temporarily  accumulate,  can  go  on  getting 
something  for  nothing;  because  in  the  last  analysis 


130  vTHE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  something  has  to  be  produced  by  somebody. 
And  if  the  something  produced  is  turned  over  to 
somebody  for  nothing,  it  will  simply  cease  to  be 
produced.  A  dollar  must  be  earned  before  it  can 
be  paid  out  in  wages,  and  if  wages  are  pushed  to  the 
point  where  production  is  unprofitable  the  where 
withal  to  pay  wages  will  be  lacking.  And  let  no  one 
delude  himself  that  the  next  step  is  for  the  Govern 
ment  to  take  over  industry  and  thus  make  available 
an  indefinite  supply  of  money  to  pay  wages;  be 
cause  it  is  a  truth  that,  if  we  eliminate  printing- 
press  money,  even  Government  money  must  be 
earned  by  someone's  work  before  it  is  acquired  by 
the  Government  through  taxation;  and  an  indefinite 
increase  of  taxation  would  soon  tend  to  eliminate 
the  golden  supply  upon  which  the  taxation  is  based. 
If  it  is  understood  that  labor  is  not  after  something 
for  nothing,  capital  will  go  a  long  way  to  meet  any 
conditions  approved  by  public  opinion.  There  is  a 
deep  interest  among  liberal-minded  business  men  in 
the  question:  Will  labor  representation  in  the 
management  of  business  enterprises  lead  to  greater 
contentment  and  better  industrial  production?  If 
experience  proves  that  the  answer  should  be  in  the 
affirmative,  there  will  be  no  room  for  further  dis 
cussion  of  the  subject.  But  up  to  the  present, 
labor  leaders  themselves  have  failed  to  give  definite 
assurances  upon  this  crucial  point;  and  the  existing 
experience  is  not  sufficient  to  enable  the  great  body 
of  forward-looking  business  men  to  form  a  working 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  131 

business  judgment  on  the  question.  Up  to  this 
time,  the  emphasis  has  been  upon  ever-increasing 
wages  and  ever-decreasing  hours.  The  time  has 
come,  however,  when  the  leaders  of  thought  in  the 
business  world  are  asking  whether  a  greater  participa 
tion  of  the  employes  in  decisions  affecting  their  own 
welfare  cannot  be  arrived  at  in  an  orderly  and 
equitable  manner.  It  is  fair  to  ask  these  leaders, 
also,  how  far  the  unlimited  right  of  bequest  or  in 
heritance  is  an  essential  part  of  the  right  of  private 
property,  and  in  general  what  can  be  done  by  com 
bined  American  intelligence,  ingenuity  and  organiz 
ing  power  to  alleviate  conditions  for  which  no  class 
of  Americans  is  wholly  responsible,  but  in  which  the 
nation  as  a  whole  has  a  direct  interest,  conditions 
which  are  not  going  to  be  relieved  by  the  pouring 
forth  of  impassioned  oratory  from  soap  boxes,  useful 
as  this  may  be  as  a  safety-valve. 

The  majority  of  Americans  realize  that  the  present 
industrial  system  is  an  evolution  from  comparatively 
meager  beginnings.  It  is  producing  the  essentials  of 
the  life  of  mankind.  The  men  now  chiefly  in  charge 
of  it  are  contributing  all  they  have  in  them  to  keep 
ing  it  in  order.  They  know  its  vital  importance  to 
our  people.  They  are  as  eager  as  any  men  can  be 
to  keep  this  heritage  sound  and  clean.  They  must 
be  shown  wherein  the  public  interest  demands  new 
machinery,  because  if  new  machinery  is  to  be  in 
stalled  no  one  can  do  it  half  so  well  as  they  can  do  it. 
The  people  of  America  need  them;  for  they  are 


132  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

typical  Americans,  with  all  their  energy,  their  over- 
readiness  to  fight  before  they  think,  their  restless 
desire  for  results,  and  at  the  same  time  their  human 
sympathy,  their  eagerness  to  play  fair  if  the  other 
fellow  will  play  fair  too. 

These  are  some  of  the  considerations  with  which 
liberal  thought  must  concern  itself  in  studying  the 
industrial  problem.  The  practical  as  well  as  the 
theoretical  must  be  surveyed.  Many  plans  must  be 
tried.  Many  will  fail.  None  will  prove  universally 
applicable.  But  none  will  be  useful  in  any  degree  un 
less  it  comes  out  of  a  conference  not  of  violent 
partisans,  but  of  Americans  who  recognize  that  the 
problem  is  national  and  not  sectional.  The  task 
must  be  handled  by  the  most  broad-minded  and  tact 
ful  men  in  the  community,  men  who  will  give  it 
consistent  thought  and  make  sacrifices  to  put  their 
solutions  into  working  operation. 

The  way  to  get  together  is  to  get  together.  But 
before  results  can  be  looked  for,  both  sides  are  in 
need  of  education  and  clear  thinking  and,  above  all, 
catch  words  must  be  eliminated.  It  is  very  easy  to 
dismiss  a  troublesome  person  by  saying  that  he  is  a 
radical  or  an  anarchist  or  a  Bolshevik;  and  the 
person  thus  characterized  does  not  help  matters  by 
coming  back  at  his  accuser  with  "Reactionary!" 
or  "Bourbon!"  We  live  in  an  age  of  trade-marks 
and  catch  words,  and  the  process  of  eliminating 
prejudices  and  convictions  based  upon  misinforma 
tion  is  no  small  task. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  133 

A  prominent  labor  leader  recently  said  that  in 
most  cases  representatives  of  the  employes  in  a  partic 
ular  plant  could  get  together  with  the  employer  with 
out  much  difficulty,  but  the  trouble  was  that  no 
general  plan  could  ever  be  worked  out,  because  no  two 
employers  could  get  together.  This  is  something  to 
think  over  carefully.  But  once  let  these  men  get 
together  and  a  new  result  will  appear.  If  the  brains 
to  be  found  in  America  today  will  get  together 
nothing  is  impossible.  No  sane  American  will  say 
a  thing  is  impossible  when  it  has  never  been  tried 
once.  Lock  a  few  groups  of  liberal  Americans  in  a 
room  away  from  business  and  telephones  and  other 
diversions  and  see  if  they  do  not  come  out  with 
something  closely  akin  to  results.  It  will  not  be  a 
Utopia,  but  it  will  be  progress. 

Some  people  do  not  believe  in  conferences  and 
conventions.  This  is  not  because  the  gathering  of 
men  together  to  confer  and  exchange  views  is  not 
in  itself  a  good  thing.  It  is  because  busy  men  have 
so  often  been  gathered  together  for  annual  conven 
tions  which  have  little  excuse  for  existence  other 
than  the  fact  of  their  being  annual.  Conventions 
called  for  special  objects  can  work  wonders.  Our 
own  Constitutional  Convention  brought  order  out 
of  chaos  and  saved  our  infant  nation  from  dis 
integration.  Political  conventions  sometimes  ac 
complish  results.  One  of  them  nominated  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Conventions  have  played  a  great  part  in 
America  in  the  development  of  leadership.  And 


134  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

furthermore,  these  meetings  serve  to  focus  upon  the 
problem  in  hand  the  minds  of  the  people  at  home; 
and  perhaps  while  the  deliberations  are  going  forward 
in  convention  the  people  at  home  will  get  to  work 
and  settle  the  problem  for  themselves.  Certainly 
conventions,  if  properly  handled,  keep  the  com 
munity  from  sitting  back  and  complaining;  and 
often  they  pave  the  way  for  the  precise,  definite, 
careful  action  upon  which  permanent  results  in  the 
long  run  must  always  rest.  If  the  basic  principles 
are  to  be  found,  if  the  raw  materials  of  industrial 
peace  exist  in  America,  it  is  our  own  fault  if  we  do 
not  apply  them  cooperatively  to  the  solution  of  our 
difficulties.  We  can  only  blame  ourselves  if  we  do 
not  go  at  the  task  with  a  firm  belief  that  it  can  be 
accomplished. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  change  of  attitude 
such  as  must  take  place  if  the  needs  of  the  present 
situation  are  to  be  satisfied  can  be  brought  about 
over  night.  Industrial  reorganization  cannot  be 
solidly  established  with  "dramatic  suddenness"  as 
one  able  American  writer  believes.  But  no  one 
knows  how  much  can  be  done,  because  the  brains 
and  drive  of  American  industry,  both  labor  and 
capital,  have  never  really  got  at  it  with  the  will  to 
agree.  Here  is  what  Glenn  Frank  says  about  it  in 
one  of  his  suggestive  papers  recently  published  under 
the  title,  "The  Politics  of  Industry": 

"I  think  I  could  name  twenty  leaders  of  American 
business  and  industry  who  at  this  moment  hold  it 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  135 

within  their  power  to  determine  the  course  of  in 
dustrial  relations  in  this  country  for  the  next  twenty- 
five  years  at  least.  What  I  mean  concretely  is  this: 
There  are  twenty  outstanding  leaders  of  American 
business  and  industry  who  have  always  been  .  .  . 
concerned  primarily  with  the  financial  problem  of 
industry;  if  these  twenty  men  should  pool  their 
brain-power  in  a  study  of  the  labor  problem  with  the 
same  sustained  thought  they  have  given  to  financial 
problems,  if  they  should  counsel  with  students  of 
labor  as  they  have  counseled  with  students  of  chem 
ical,  electrical,  and  other  problems  that  touch  their 
business  interests,  and  if  they  should  take  the  initia 
tive  in  making  a  sincere  and  exhaustive  study  of 
the  whole  area  lying  between  the  extreme  forms  of 
private  capitalism  and  the  extreme  forms  of  State 
Socialism  in  order  to  find  out  whether  or  not  there 
is  a  middle  ground  of  industrial  self-government  on 
which  both  labor  and  capital  can  stand  in  a  co 
operation  that  will  minister  to  the  legitimate  aims 
of  both,  I  have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  they  - 
these  twenty  business  and  industrial  leaders  - 
could  with  dramatic  suddenness  invent  a  new  order  of 
industry.  I  am  not  being  carried  away  with  rhetoric. 
I  have  seen  enough  instances  of  industrial  self-gov 
ernment  at  work  to  know  that  the  tested  principles 
of  free,  responsible,  and  representative  government 
can  be  adapted  to  business  and  industry  in  a 
manner  that  will  go  far  toward  eliminating  the  waste 
of  labor  conflicts,  uncovering  hitherto  unused  re- 


136  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

serves  of  enterprise  and  ingenuity  in  the  working 
force,  largely  freeing  the  time  of  executives  from  the 
administration  of  discipline  which  today  drains 
away  valuable  executive  energy  that  should  be  em 
ployed  in  the  larger  creative  tasks  of  policy  and 
expansion,  and  actually  making  business  and  in 
dustry  more  profitable.  .  .  .  The  constitutional 
problem  that  our  political  fathers  faced,  our  business 
men  face  today  in  business  and  industry  under  the 
name  of  the  problem  of  management  or  control. 
Until  that  problem  is  solved  by  genuine  business 
statesmanship,  the  labor  problem  will  doubtless  con 
tinue  as  a  balance  of  power  game  of  see-saw,  and  in 
the  midst  of  every  labor  conflict  we  shall  hear  the 
familiar  jibes  that  labor's  only  interest  is  in  shorter 
hours  and  higher  wages  and  that  capital's  only 
interest  is  in  longer  hours  and  lower  wages,  jibes 
that  fly  wide  of  the  mark  simply  because  no  one 
faces  boldly  the  real  challenge  of  the  labor  problem. 
The  American  public  is  waiting  for  a  business 
statesmanship  that  will  attack  the  government 
problem  in  industry." 

One  is  led  to  ask  what  these  twenty  men  have 
been  doing  during,  let  us  say,  the  past  ten  years,  if 
they  had  it  in  them  to  solve  this  problem  so  readily. 
Not  one  of  them  but  has  individually  thought  deeply 
on  this  outstanding  problem  of  his  business  life. 
Perhaps  the  trouble  is  that  they  have  not  thought 
deeply  together.  But  it  would  be  unfortunate  to 
encourage  false  hopes  for  the  emergence  of  an  all- 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  137 

embracing  settlement  of  the  industrial  problem  from 
the  minds  of  any  group  of  twenty  men.  The  in 
dustrial  situation  is  not  a  problem  in  mathematics 
capable  of  exact  and  precise  solution.  There  is 
no  great  mystery  involved.  The  great  point  is 
that  the  problem  bears  upon  the  development  of 
mutual  sympathy  and  understanding  between  groups 
of  human  beings.  It  will  not  be  solved,  therefore, 
by  individuals  regarding  each  other  as  cogs 
in  the  industrial  machine.  It  will  be  solved  when 
labor  and  capital  get  around  a  table  and  regard 
one  another  as  men.  It  may  not  be  possible  with 
"dramatic  suddenness"  to  bring  about  the  un 
selfishness  which  underlies  all  successful  cooperation; 
it  may  be  difficult  to  establish  the  basic  necessity 
which  cannot  be  mentioned  too  frequently,  the 
desire  to  trade,  the  readiness  to  make  concessions, 
the  mutual  will  to  get  together.  If  this  desire,  to 
trade,  to  make  concessions,  does  not  exist,  it  must 
be  developed  with  all  the  energy  of  an  ingenious 
and  hardy  race.  When  this  has  been  achieved,  all 
other  things  shall  be  added  unto  it.  Until  it  is 
achieved  there  can  be  no  industrial  peace. 

Meanwhile  the  enlightened  business  men  and 
publicists  and  labor  leaders  will  keep  on  trying  to  get 
a  working  solution  so  long  as  they  continue  to  love 
their  country.  America  is  worth  a  hundred  con 
ferences,  all  unsuccessful,  if  number  one  hundred 
and  one  progresses  a  little  better,  and  one  hundred 
and  twelve,  gathering  up  the  cumulative  benefit  of 


138  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

all  that  has  gone  before,  finally  hits  upon  the  work 
ing  solution.  Perhaps  one  of  these  days  a  group  of 
conferees  may  find  that  they  are  agreed,  that  their 
minds  have  met  on  common  ground  which  the 
public  will  approve.  And  then  we  shall  begin  to 
feel  this  great  pressure  lift  from  our  hearts,  and  as 
a  united  country  we  may  turn  our  eyes  outward 
and  not  inward,  and  go  forward  another  stage  on 
the  highway  of  American  destiny. 

As  a  concluding  suggestion,  a  word  may  be  said 
for  the  necessity  of  a  wider  reading  as  a  step  toward 
sounder  capitalist  leadership.  It  is  not  a  difficult 
task  for  the  average  man  to  keep  in  touch  with 
books  which  cover  the  latest  thought  of  experts  on 
the  problems  of  the  day.  The  world  is  moving  at 
such  a  pace  that  most  books  are  out  of  date  by  the 
time  they  come  off  the  presses.  But  insofar  as 
they  treat  of  fundamentals  and  reveal  an  honest 
attitude  of  mind  they  contain  the  raw  material  to 
work  with  in  reaching  a  solution  of  current  prob 
lems.  It  is  as  necessary  to  have  the  other  man's 
point  of  view  as  it  is  to  know  one's  own.  It  may 
be  frankly  stated  that  many  men  who  would  be 
capable  of  vigorous  liberal  leadership  know  neither. 

We  should  read  the  opinions  of  the  man  who 
believes  we  are  wholly  wrong  in  our  thought  and 
action.  A  writer  who  can  find  a  publisher  is  sure 
to  find  some  readers,  and  some  of  his  readers  are 
likely  to  believe  what  he  has  written.  The  litera 
ture  of  wide  and  influential  circulation  attacking 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  139 

the  men  who  are  depended  upon  for  industrial 
leadership  today,  who  have  won  their  right  to  lead 
in  most  cases  by  native  ability  in  a  highly  competi 
tive  field,  would  amaze  many  of  these  men  if  they 
stopped  to  read.  They  must  stop  to  read.  It  will 
help  them  to  define  their  own  beliefs,  and  to  realize 
the  strength  and  intelligence  of  radical  reformers  who 
cannot  safely  be  ignored  by  liberal  or  even  by  con 
servative  thought.  The  wider  public  is  giving  these 
radicals  a  very  considerable  hearing,  and  it  is  not 
good  tactics  to  underestimate  such  opponents, 
much  less  to  ignore  them. 

Business  men  say  they  are  too  busy  to  read. 
Few  of  them  accomplish  as  much  work  in  a  year 
as  did  Theodore  Roosevelt;  and  yet  in  the  most 
strenuous  days  of  his  presidency  he  read  constantly, 
liberally,  all  kinds  of  books.  And  yet  no  one  could 
call  Roosevelt  " bookish. "  He  could  "tear  the 
heart  out  of  a  book."  This  is  an  art  which  is  highly 
valuable  in  this  time  of  complexity  of  interests  and 
multiplication  of  printed  matter.  If  business  leaders 
believe  that  everything  about  the  industrial  system 
of  this  country  is  right,  they  will  simply  continue 
their  arduous  job  of  operating  the  vast  machinery 
of  production,  while  the  radicals  operate  the  print 
ing  presses.  But  if  they  believe  the  world  moves 
forward  and  that  the  shaping  of  the  minds  of  men 
through  the  printed  word  is  a  vital  element  in 
guiding  national  progress,  if  they  believe  in  the 
force  of  education,  both  sound  and  unsound,  they 


140  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

will  realize  that  the  case  of  the  radicals  has  been 
presented  at  least  with  skill  and  vigor,  and  that  it 
is  not  wise  or  right  or  American  for  captains  of 
industry  to  remain  silent  and  let  the  case  go  against 
them  by  default. 

For  it  is  not  their  personal  case  that  is  under  dis 
cussion.  It  is  to  a  very  important  degree  the  cause 
of  the  American  people.  A  substantial  portion  of 
these  people  are  today  relying  upon  the  good  faith, 
the  integrity,  the  vision  of  business  leadership. 
These  men  can  do  no  less  than  to  keep  studying, 
with  open  minds,  the  points  of  view  expressed  by 
competent  persons  on  all  phases  of  this  great  prob 
lem,  a  problem  which  can  never  be  completely 
solved  and  laid  to  rest  because  it  is  the  embodiment 
of  the  living  interplay  of  human  emotions,  instincts 
and  ambitions.  This  is  what  some  business  leaders 
have  for  years  been  doing.  To  do  less  than  this  is 
to  have  put  business  leadership  in  the  position  of 
violating  a  sacred  trust.  In  this  way  only  can  we 
arrive  at  industrial  evolution  instead  of  stagnation 
periodically  disturbed  by  petty  rebellion.  The 
remedy  of  today  will  not  be  the  remedy  of  next 
year;  but  if  there  is  the  right  kind  of  leadership, 
we  shall  be  ready  to  meet  next  year's  problem  when 
next  year  comes  around.  - 

Incidentally,  it  is  notable  that  very  few  business 
men  find  time,  in  America,  to  write  books.  This 
is  not  true  of  other  countries.  It  is  to  be  regretted, 
because  in  an  age  of  specialization  it  has  been  left 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  141 

too  much  to  one  group  of  men  to  do  the  work  and  to 
another  group  of  men  to  become  professional  critics 
of  the  way  the  work  is  done.  Believing  as  we  do  in 
specialization  it  would  be  idle  to  expect  that  men 
who  must  spend  long  days  in  the  actual  affairs  of 
business  or  politics  can  often  produce  a  brilliant 
or  even  workmanlike  exposition  of  those  affairs  in 
the  shape  of  books.  But  what  is  lacking  in  literary 
distinction  may  in  some  cases  be  made  up  in  the 
value  of  a  point  of  view  which  is  being  given  an 
actual  try-out  in  the  arena  of  practical  affairs. 

One  reason  why  liberal  business  men  as  a  group 
do  not  do  more  writing  is  because  their  daily  life 
is  made  up  of  a  series  of  compromises  between  the 
ideals  at  which  they  aim  and  what  can  be  accom 
plished  under  the  resistless  pressure  of  daily  busi 
ness  life.  There  are  today  many  business  men, 
highly  successful  business  men,  who  in  another 
century  might  have  been  poets  or  explorers  or 
builders  of  cathedrals,  but  in  this  crowded  and 
highly  developed  age  they  have  been  attracted  by 
the  stern  conflicts  and  endlessly  complicated  ven 
tures  of  the  world  of  business.  Their  ideals  have 
not  been  shattered.  They  are  still  dreamers.  If 
they  were  not,  no  amount  of  money  in  the  world 
could  induce  them  to  undergo  the  strain  and  stress 
of  the  modern  American  business  life.  But  the 
very  magnitude  and  persistence  of  the  problems  of 
today  and  the  concentration  they  require  on  the 
part  of  business  men,  make  it  seem  almost  im- 


142  THE  NEW  ^FRONTIER 

possible  for  the  average  man  to  go  home  in  the 
evening  and  take  the  time  to  view  objectively  the 
fundamentals  of  the  life  he  is  living  and  set  down 
on  paper  consecutively,  and  if  possible  readably, 
an  analysis  of  what  he  stands  for  and  hopes  to 
achieve. 

And  yet  it  is  important  that  the  liberal  business 
man  should  make  the  attempt  because  the  presses 
are  busy  with  literature  that  misrepresents  the  ideals 
of  the  practical  man  and  attacks  his  accomplish 
ment.  Meanwhile,  the  public,  trained  in  the  be 
lief  that  everything  wrhich  is,  is  in  print,  can  hardly 
be  blamed  for  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
leaders  of  the  present  business  world  have  little  or 
nothing  to  say  for  themselves  and  that  everything 
that  is  said  against  them  is  true. 

But  those  who  will  not  write  may  at  least  read 
widely.  The  reader  of  books  will  forget  the  de 
tails  of  what  he  has  read  and  will  go  back  better 
equipped  to  his  daily  problems  as  a  man,  to  deal 
with  men.  A  new  angle  here,  a  suggestion  there, 
gathered  from  the  clear  thinking  of  other  men  who 
have  worked  for  industrial  peace,  may  be  a  guide- 
post  along  the  road.  Any  wayfarer  on  a  long 
journey  knows  that  guide-posts  do  not  always 
speak  the  truth;  yet  how  far  should  we  get  without 
them?  When  we  want  to  make  reasonable  speed, 
how  can  we  afford  to  let  each  traveler  evolve  a 
guide-book  out  of  his  own  inner  consciousness  as 
he  goes  along?  First  and  foremost  we  need  the 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM  143 

human  association  and  practical  experience;  but 
to  supplement  this  fundamental  requirement  we 
need  contact  with  the  deliberate  thoughts  and 
conclusions  of  men  which  have  been  gathered  to 
gether  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  workaday 
world  and  placed  for  our  use  between  the  covers 
of  books. 


THE  NEED  FOR  FIFTY  MILLION 
CAPITALISTS 

As  a  general  proposition,  it  may  be  said  that 
business  men  are  by  training  and  experience  favor 
ably  equipped  to  take  positions  of  leadership  in 
handling  the  public  problems  of  this  age,  an  age  in 
which  the  organization  and  management  of  the 
machinery  for  producing  the  basic  necessities  of 
existence  calls  not  only  for  the  talents  of  men  but, 
to  an  almost  equal  degree,  for  genius. 

First  of  all,  it  should  be  stated  frankly  that  our 
business  leaders  are  capitalists.  They  are  citizens 
of  a  capitalistic  nation.  They  believe  in  capitalism. 
And  they  are  by  no  means  preponderantly  ultra- 
conservative.  Like  most  groups  of  Americans  they 
include  all  shades  of  opinion.  Some  of  our  capi 
talists  are  radicals.  Many  are  robust  conservatives. 
But  the  majority  are  liberal.  The  country  as  a 
whole  often  forgets  that  the  principles  of  capital 
ism  are  part  of  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of 
America,  capable  today,  as  they  have  always  been, 
of  the  fullest  adjustment  to  the  necessities  and 
ideals  of  a  great  democracy.  There  cannot  be 
capitalist  leadership  unless  there  is  a  great  follow 
ing  which  believes  in  capitalism.  Let  us  consider 

the  situation  here  in  America. 

144 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  145 

Clear  thinking  is  often  obstructed  by  the  fact 
that  persons  who  have  objection  to  the  wealth  in 
the  possession  of  certain  individuals  conclude  that 
there  is  something  inherently  wrong  in  all  private 
possession  of  wealth.  A  great  many  people  in  at 
tacking  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  capital  fail 
to  realize  that  the  capital  fund  of  the  country  is 
drawn  from  the  savings,  large  and  small,  of  all  the 
people.  In  a  broad  sense  we  are  a  nation  of  capital 
ists.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  many  investors  we  have 
in  the  country,  but  the  five  Liberty  Loan  campaigns 
and  the  War  Savings  activities  have  certainly 
created  at  least  twenty-five  million  investors  in 
this  country  through  the  medium  of  the  purchase  of 
Government  securities.  It  should  be  noted,  how 
ever,  that  bondholders  are  not  the  only  savers  in 
a  nation.  Attention  has  been  called  to  the  fact 
that  there  were  only  some  four  hundred  thousand 
bondholders  in  the  entire  country  previous  to  the 
war  and  that  this  number  had  been  raised  to  mil 
lions.  This  does  not  give  a  complete  picture  of 
American  thrift.  There  are  in  the  United  States 
today  more  than  11,000,000  depositors  in  savings 
banks,  possibly  3,000,000  depositors  in  savings  de 
partments  of  banks  and  trust  companies,  more  than 
11,000,000  holders  of  insurance  policies,  nearly 
4,000,000  members  of  building  and  loan  associations 
and  perhaps  2,000,000  holders  of  stocks  and  bonds 
other  than  Liberty  bonds. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  capitalist  system 


146  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

cannot  be  improved  upon  in  its  operating  details. 
It  does  mean  that  as  a  nation  we  are  definitely  and 
consciously  committed  to  it,  that  we  have  ground 
for  faith  in  its  ultimate  usefulness  as  a  medium  of 
general  public  welfare,  and  if  the  capitalistic  system 
has  a  fundamentally  sound  basis  it  needs  to  be  ad 
vocated  with  the  same  eloquence,  vigor  and  fair 
ness  that  have  been  used  in  the  advocacy  of  other 
systems.  Winston  Churchill  recently  said  in  a 
public  speech,  "I  am  astonished  to  see  how  people 
are  afraid  to  defend  the  capitalist  system.  The 
politicians  are  afraid,  the  newspapers  are  afraid, 
and  they  prefer  to  give  the  thing  the  go-by.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  capitalist  system  is  capable 
of  sustained  and  searching  defense.  It  is  the 
only  system  that  has  ever  been  devised  for  regu 
lating  the  economic  relations  between  man  and 
man,  and  for  appraising  the  value  of  services  which 
men  render  to  each  other  or  exact  from  each  other 
-  the  only  system  apart  from  slavery.  But  if  the 
capitalist  system  is  to  be  successfully  defended,  it 
can  only  be  defended  by  showing  that  there  is  a 
moral  basis  for  property,  and  you  will  not  establish 
a  moral  basis  for  property  or  obtain  conviction 
from  the  masses  of  the  people  unless  you  are  able 
at  the  same  time  to  make  just  laws  regulating  and 
bringing  up  to  date  the  condition  under  which 
property  is  acquired  and  enjoyed,  and  to  correct 
by  taxation  the  evils  of  unmerited  acquisition  or 
indolent  enjoyment." 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  147 

If  the  economic  system  of  Asia  Minor  and  India 
and  China,  with  its  striking  absence  of  capital,  and 
the  resulting  national  inactivity  and  individual  lack 
of  opportunity,  is  what  Americans  want,  they  may 
perhaps,  with  great  effort,  be  able  to  get  it.  But 
if  the  capitalist  system  is  a  right  system  in  the 
opinion  of  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  world, 
it  will  endure.  For  the  present  no  substitute  has 
been  offered  which  has  obtained  any  standing  in 
America.  Our  object  then  would  fairly  appear  to 
be  to  improve  that  which  we  have.  If  the  capitalist 
system  has  virtues,  let  us  strengthen  and  apply 
them  widely.  If  it  has  faults,  let  us  aim  to  eradicate 
them.  The  American  people  do  not  hate  capital 
ism;  they  all  want  to  be  capitalists  themselves. 
But  they  want  to  see  the  extremes  brought  closer 
together.  The  true  economic  objective  is  not  to 
destroy  capitalism  but  to  spread  capital  even 
further  among  the  people.  American  capitalism 
calls  for  fewer  dependents,  and  fewer  fortunes 
which  extend  beyond  the  powers  and  needs 
of  individual  men.  In  other  words,  the  great 
public  demand  today  is  for  the  application  to 
capital  of  the  sane,  middle-of-the-road  policy  of 
liberalism.  The  chief  cure  for  capitalism  is  more 
capitalists. 

In  any  discussion  of  this  matter  the  simple  and 
elementary  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  saved 
dollar  must  take  a  large  place.  The  solution  of 
present  economic  problems,  both  our  own  and  those 


148  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  the  world,  must  rest  first,  upon  production,  and 
second,  upon  saving.  The  capital  resources  of  the 
country  which  enable  the  wheels  of  industry  to 
go  around  are  supplied  by  the  millions  of  people 
who  every  year  spend  at  least  a  dollar  less  than  they 
earn.  This  dollar  may  be  worth  much  more  than 
a  dollar  when  set  to  work  as  a  basis  for  the  credit 
operations  of  the  country;  but  every  dollar  that 
is  saved  means  at  least  a  dollar  more  towards 
facilitating  the  productive  powers  of  the  nation. 
During  the  war  we  were  as  a  nation  converting 
the  future  savings  of  our  people  into  current  obliga 
tions  to  meet  the  vast  expenditures  of  war.  All  of 
that  money  has  been  spent,  but  most  of  it  is  yet  to 
be  saved.  Somehow  or  other,  every  dollar  that  we 
all  know  will  be  raised  to  fulfil  the  promise  behind 
the  Liberty  Bonds  must  actually  be  earned  and 
saved  by  someone.  Every  dictate  of  national  com 
mon  sense  indicates  that  the  sooner  we  save  this 
money  and  pay  it  off  the  better  it  will  be  for  us. 
Here  is  a  large  task  to  be  visualized  in  simple  terms 
and  approached  with  a  view  to  removing  the  ex 
cessive  burden  of  national  indebtedness  which  was 
cheerfully  incurred  but  which  must  speedily  and 
cheerfully  be  reduced.  Certainly,  the  people  as  a 
whole  ought  to  be  willing  to  provide  the  moderate 
funds  necessary  to  keep  this  great  fact  constantly 
before  the  country  and  to  increase  the  tendencies 
toward  thrift  to  a  point  which  will  make  it  possible 
for  us  to  pay  off  as  speedily  as  possible  the  debt  we 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  149 

have  contracted  through  our  Government  to  our 
selves.  A  consumption  tax  might  produce  more  thrift 
in  one  year  than  thrift  education  in  five.  But  the 
public  would  not  know  it  as  thrift.  Forced  thrift 
must  be  supplemented  in  a  democracy  with  reasons. 

There  is  a  school  of  thought  which  is  not  inclined 
to  worry  much  about  national  indebtedness,  and  a 
moderate  national  debt  may  have  some  advantages. 
But  when  we  are  confronted  with  a  bonded  in 
debtedness  of  twenty-five  billions  of  dollars  it  can 
not  be  otherwise  than  healthy  to  look  back  for  a 
moment  to  the  happy  days  when  we  owed  nobody 
anything.  For  example,  the  following  passage  in 
Andrew  Jackson's  Fifth  Annual  Message  to  Congress 
(December  3,  1833)  has  a  very  healthy  sound. 
"The  measures  taken  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury/'  said  President  Jackson,  "will  probably 
enable  him  to  pay  off  in  the  course  of  the  present 
year  the  residue  of  the  exchanged  four  and  one-half 
per  cent  stock  redeemable  on  the  first  of  January 
next.  .  .  .  The  payment  of  this  stock  will  reduce 
the  whole  debt  of  the  United  States,  funded  and  un 
funded,  to  the  sum  of  $4,760,082.08. 

"From  this  view  of  the  state  of  the  finances  and 
public  engagements  yet  to  be  filled,  you  will  perceive 
that  if  Providence  permits  me  to  meet  you  at  another 
session  I  shall  have  the  high  gratification  of  an 
nouncing  to  you  that  the  national  debt  is  extin 
guished.  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  the 
pleasure  I  feel  at  the  near  approach  of  that  desirable 


150  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

event.  The  short  period  of  time  within  which  the 
public  debt  will  have  been  discharged  is  strong  evi 
dence  of  the  abundant  resources  of  the  country  and 
of  the  prudence  and  economy  with  which  the  Govern 
ment  has  heretofore  been  administered.  We  have 
waged  two  wars  since  we  became  a  nation,  with 
one  of  the  most  powerful  kingdoms  in  the  world, 
both  of  them  undertaken  in  defense  of  our  dearest 
rights,  both  successfully  prosecuted  and  honorably 
terminated;  and  many  of  those  who  partook  in 
the  first  struggle  as  well  as  in  the  second  will  have 
lived  to  see  the  last  item  of  the  debt  incurred  in 
these  necessary  but  expensive  conflicts  faithfully  and 
honestly  discharged,  and  we  shall  have  the  proud 
satisfaction  of  bequeathing  to  the  public  servants 
who  follow  us  in  the  administration  of  the  Govern 
ment,  the  rare  blessing  of  a  revenue  sufficiently 
abundant,  raised  without  injustice  or  oppression  to 
our  citizens,  and  unencumbered  with  any  burdens 
but  what  they  themselves  shall  think  proper  to 
impose  upon  it." 

In  his  Seventh  Annual  Message  (December  7, 
1835)  Jackson  used  the  following  language:  "Since 
my  last  annual  communication  all  the  remains  of 
the  public  debt  have  been  redeemed,  or  money  has 
been  placed  on  deposit  for  this  purpose  whenever 
the  creditors  choose  to  receive  it.  All  the  other 
pecuniary  engagements  of  the  Government  have 
been  honorably  and  promptly  fulfilled  and  there  will 
be  a  balance  in  the  Treasury  at  the  close  of  the 
present  year  of  about  $19,000,000." 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  151 

This  language  is  not  quoted  to  break  the  hearts 
of  those  who  are  at  present  in  charge  of  our  national 
Treasury.  It  may  truly  be  said  that  this  nation 
has  been  most  fortunate  in  the  men  who  have  been 
responsible  for  our  public  finances  during  the 
stupendous  financial  years  of  the  war.  There  are 
some  serious  differences  of  opinion  with  regard  to 
rates  of  interest  and  other  phases  of  our  financial 
program;  but  history  will  probably  conclude  that 
the  secretaries  and  assistant  secretaries  of  the 
Treasury  who  bore  this  heavy  burden  rendered  a 
great  public  service.  And  it  may  be  added  here 
that  there  has  never  been  in  the  history  of  the 
country  a  more  stimulating  example  of  complete 
popular  cooperation  in  a  great  nation  than  was 
evinced  under  the  leadership  of  the  Treasury  De 
partment  and  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks  which  all 
through  the  war  turned  to  the  men  who  possessed 
the  requisite  knowledge,  irrespective  of  party  or 
of  the  fact  that  these  men  happened  to  be  in  Wall 
Street  or  State  Street  or  on  a  farm  in  Kansas. 
They  balanced  conflicting  opinions  and  formed  their 
conclusions  without  prejudices  or  favor  and  the  re 
sult  was  a  series  of  financial  operations  which  in 
cleanness  and  magnitude  has  never  been  surpassed 
in  the  history  of  the  world. 

If  war  debts  are  to  be  paid  off  it  is  evident  that 
the  impulses  toward  thrift  must  be  emphasized. 
But  the  experience  of  the  War  Savings  campaign 
taught  us  that  thrift  teaching  today  must  be  in 


152  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  language  of  today.  We  are  not  living  in  a  time 
when  thrift  in  the  abstract  is  appealing.  The  old 
maxims  "A  pin  a  day  is  a  groat  a  year"  and  "A 
penny  saved  is  a  penny  earned"  do  not  touch  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  present  generation  which  has 
been  brought  up  under  the  shadow  of  great  enter 
prises,  and  transactions  on  a  continental  scale. 
The  underlying  necessity  for  thrift  is  greater  than 
it  ever  was,  and  our  solution  of  the  difficulty  is 
to  use  the  vivid  and  colorful  advertising  and  pub 
licity  machinery  of  the  country  to  lay  before  the 
public  not  the  negative  processes  of  thrift  but  the 
positive  and  highly  enjoyable  results  thereof.  This 
principle  is  well  illustrated  by  the  method  by  which 
the  War  Savings  movement  has  firmly  established 
thrift  teaching  in  the  schools.  It  will  never  do  any 
good  to  tell  a  child  to  save  his  pennies  simply  in 
order  to  become  a  better  child.  The  urge  of  the 
stick  of  candy  is  so  much  more  powerful  than  the 
abstract  moral  urge  that  such  a  practice  must 
ordinarily  be  futile.  But  suppose  we  give  the  child 
a  picture  of  a  bicycle,  and  proceed  to  whet  the 
desire  by  dwelling  at  considerable  length  upon  the 
delights  of  bicycling  and  describing  a  series  of 
bicycle  journeys  to  points  of  interest  and  pleasure 
beyond  walking  distance  from  the  school.  Or  sup 
pose  we  visualize  a  trip  to  Japan  with  pictures  of 
Japanese  scenes  and  Japanese  children.  After  this 
we  bring  into  the  schoolroom  a  picture  of  the  ship 
that  goes  to  Japan,  with  illustrations  of  the  cabins 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  153 

and  dining  salon  and  all  the  interesting  features  of 
the  great  ocean  liner.  Add  to  this  a  canceled 
steamship  ticket,  and  finally  refer  to  the  price  of 
the  journey  and  the  number  of  Thrift  Stamps  and 
War  Savings  Stamps  which  will  make  up  the  neces 
sary  total  and  we  have  perhaps  developed  a  new 
saver  in  America  and  at  the  same  time  added  to  the 
happiness  of  the  child.  Of  course  this  method  can 
be  extended  so  as  to  apply  to  all  ages  and  to  different 
objectives  such  as  putting  a  boy  through  college  or 
setting  him  up  in  business,  or  putting  him  in  a 
position  where  he  can  afford  to  get  married.  This 
is  positive  rather  than  negative  thrift  teaching. 

Again,  we  must  lay  emphasis  upon  earning  power 
as  well  as  upon  saving.  It  may  be  pointed  out  that 
the  young  man  who  earns  $1500  a  year  may  save 
too  much  if  he  saves  at  the  expense  of  his  personal 
appearance  or  the  personal  appearance  of  his  wife 
and  family.  Some  men  at  the  present  time  may 
well  find  that  by  saving  a  little  less  and  spending 
a  little  more  in  a  judicious  way  they  will  increase 
their  chances  of  advancement,  and  as  earning 
power  increases  saving  power  will  increase.  Thus 
by  spending  a  little  more  and  saving  a  little  less 
the  man  to  whom  saving  has  become  an  obsession 
will  find  that  he  can  spend  much  more  and  save 
much  more,  to  the  great  good  of  the  economic 
community. 

All  thrift  teaching  should  be  positive  and  not 
negative.  It  will  not  be  productive  to  say  "don't" 


154  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

to  people;  but  rather  "do."  Thrift  is  stored-up 
power;  refraining  from  purely  wasteful  and  un 
productive  expenditures  today  will  make  available 
to  the  individual  money  for  expenditures  tomorrow 
and  for  next  year  which  will  be  far  more  productive 
in  the  way  of  personal  welfare.  We  should  be  pre 
pared  to  place  this  appeal  before  the  public  on  the 
fundamental  ground  of  the  joy  it  will  bring.  We 
must  take  thrift  out  of  the  class  of  those  moral 
texts  which  are  universally  used  and  never  followed, 
and  bring  it  up  to  the  practical  level  of  the  man 
who  sits  on  the  bleachers  at  the  ball  game  and  likes 
saving  because  it  works.  We  can  go  squarely  back 
to  Jefferson's  words  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  "life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  The  pursuit  of 
happiness  is  legitimate  and  inevitable.  The  ap 
plication  of  happiness,  however,  which  is  pertinent 
in  this  case  is  not  "let  us  eat  and  drink  for  tomorrow 
we  die"  but  rather,  "let  us  enjoy  ourselves  within 
reason  today  and  not  spend  all  we  earn,  for  tomorrow 
we  shall  still  be  living  and  we  shall  need  the  money  " 
There  is  a  wide  national  significance  in  this  kind 
of  thrift  teaching,  because  it  emphasizes  the  fact 
that  a  nation  can  be  strong  only  if  it  is  made  up 
of  strong  individuals.  It  emphasizes  the  necessity 
of  dissemination  of  capital  in  small  units  throughout 
the  population.  It  emphasizes  the  value  of  saving 
in  tying  our  foreign  population  more  firmly  to  the 
soil  and  helping  them  to  become  self-reliant  Ameri- 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  155 

cans.  It  thus  tends  to  produce  a  nation  of  vigor 
ous  and  contented  people,  and  through  it  a  wise 
liberal  leadership  can  throw  humanity  and  sunlight 
into  a  dull  subject  and  thus  set  in  motion  a  force 
which  will  in  turn  throw  sunlight  into  some  of  the 
darkest  corners  of  the  social  structure  of  America. 
Liberal  leadership  must  aim  at  a  constantly  ex 
panding  development  of  production  and  thrift. 
The  national  motto  may  well  be  "work  and  save." 

If  capitalism  is  to  be  adapted  to  the  expanding 
needs  of  our  own  time  its  exponents  must  not 
simply  favor  it  —  they  must  understand  it.  They 
must  not  rest  content  to  assert  that  it  is  sound  — 
they  must  be  prepared  to  prove  it.  This  means  that 
business  leadership  calls  more  and  more  for  a 
thorough  training  in  the  principles  of  economics. 
The  economics  of  the  fathers  has  still  its  great 
lessons;  but  it  must  be  read  in  the  light  of  the 
modern  development  of  applied  economics,  in  a 
day  when  the  problems  of  finance  and  industry 
are  so  numerous  and  varied  as  to  be  out  of  the  mental 
grasp  of  any  single  human  being. 

Like  Moliere's  doctor,  who  suddenly  discovered 
that  he  had  been  talking  "prose"  for  thirty  years, 
the  average  business  man  might  well  say  that  in 
the  discussion  of  current  questions  he  has  for  years 
actually  been  talking  economics.  One  of  the 
achievements  of  the  past  generation  has  been  the 
bringing  of  economic  theory  down  from  the  clouds, 
as  Franklin  brought  lightning  out  of  the  sky,  and 


156  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

applying  its  principles  to  practical  affairs,  with 
the  beneficent  result  of  limiting  to  some  extent  the 
Utopian  tendencies  of  the  abstract  thinker  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  of  helping  the  practical 
man  to  achieve  a  little  order  out  of  the  chaos  of 
economic  and  social  action  and  reaction  which 
besets  his  daily  life. 

Sometimes  even  a  single  clear  thinker  can  ac 
complish  a  little.  For  example,  the  modern  volume 
by  Henry  Clay  entitled  "Economics  for  the  General 
Reader"  which  was  described  in  a  recent  issue  of 
the  American  Economic  Review  as  "The  best  small 
volume  on  general  economics  that  has  appeared  in 
this  decade"  makes  one  feel  that  a  way  through  the 
maze  of  industrial  conflict  can  be  found,  just  as 
American  pioneers,  in  spite  of  endless  hardships, 
found  their  way  over  the  Alleghanies  to  the  great 
empire  of  the  West.  Mr.  Clay  is  not  one  of  those 
who  believe  that  the  elements  of  human  nature 
and  human  aspirations  are  not  a  part  of  economics. 
He  does  not  believe  that  people  will  do  what  is 
reasonable  without  assistance.  On  the  contrary, 
he  believes  that  a  study  of  all  laws  that  apply  to 
human  nature  must  be  brought  into  sympathetic 
relationship  before  we  can  eliminate  the  amount 
of  unrest  which  upsets  the  productive  equilibrium 
necessary  to  keep  this  world  of  hundreds  of  mil 
lions  of  people  in  reasonable  happiness. 

He  lays  great  stress  upon  a  broader  definition  of 
capital.  Production  alone  is  not  the  test.  "Now 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  157 

if  we  treat  product  alone  as  wealth  and  arrogate 
the  term  wealth,  which  in  a  broad  sense  means  any 
thing  that  satisfies  a  want,  to  product,  which  covers 
only  external  sources  of  satisfaction,  inevitably  we 
suggest  that  the  internal  sources  of  satisfaction  are 
not  wealth;  we  give  materialistic  tendency  to  our 
aims  and  values.  This  the  present  economic  system 
does,  because  it  is  based  on  this  narrow  conception 
of  wealth. 

"This  superficial  definiteness  gives  economic 
values  an  advantage  when  they  come  into  conflict 
with  other  valuations  as  the  influence  of  an  idea  of 
conduct  depends  very  largely  on  its  sharpness  of 
outline.  ...  In  expenditure  on  education,  for  ex 
ample,  the  appeal  of  technical  education  is  nearly 
always  more  forcible  than  the  appeal  of  liberal 
education,  because  the  results  of  the  former  can  be 
stated  in  the  addition  of  so  many  dollars  a  year  to 
the  earning  capacity  of  the  student  or  the  addition 
of  so  many  dollars  in  value  to  the  trade  of  the  town 
—  while  the  latter  merely  makes  better  men  and 
women.  The  present  age  might  be  the  richest  of 
all  the  ages  in  welfare  as  it  is  the  richest  in  wrealth. 
Perhaps  it  is;  if  it  is  not,  it  is  because  it  has  mis 
taken  the  means  for  the  end,  and  treated  the  in 
crease  of  wealth  as  an  end  in  itself,  instead  of 
controlling  it  and  directing  it  in  accordance  with 
its  general  conception  of  welfare." 

That  wealth  is  an  empty  term  if  it  does  not  in 
clude  a  due  regard  for  the  conditions  of  mind  and 


158  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

body  under  which  the  wealth  is  produced  is  becom 
ing  axiomatic  in  America.  But  we  are  still  far  from 
the  time  when  our  liberal  leaders  may  be  said,  as 
a  group,  to  have  mastered  the  economic  elements  of 
the  great  problems  which  confront  us.  Most  busi 
ness  men  speak  the  language  of  economics.  Their 
success  or  failure  affords  living  proof  of  the  existence 
of  inexorable  economic  laws.  Just  a  little  time 
given  to  study,  to  analysis,  to  the  simplest  co 
ordination  of  their  own  experience  will  often  place 
them  in  a  position  to  help  us  on  the  way  towards 
economic  sanity.  The  trouble  has  been  that  these 
men  have  been  too  busy  acting  economics  to  afford 
time  to  think  economics.  We  have  now  reached  a 
point  when  the  vast  world  machinery  of  production 
and  distribution  calls  for  experienced  men  who  have 
drawn  true  lessons  from  the  work  of  a  lifetime,  and 
are  capable  of  letting  their  light  shine  before  men 
so  they  may  be  led  towards  the  paths  of  peace  and 
justice  and  prosperity. 

There  is  much  unsound  economics  abroad  in  the 
world.  Happily  business  leadership  has  begun  to 
recognize  the  value  of  cooperation  between  the 
colleges  and  business.  Many  great  banks  and  cor 
porations  have  drafted  students  of  economics  from 
the  universities.  There  are  certainly  a  hundred 
former  professors  of  economics  now  connected  with 
American  business  life.  An  interesting  example  of 
reciprocity  in  this  field  was  recently  seen  in  the 
selection,  as  the  head  of  the  Harvard  School  of 


FIFTY  MILLION  CAPITALISTS  159 

Business  Administration,  of  Dean  Donham,  who  had 
been  for  a  dozen  years  an  officer  of  a  great  trust 
company.  Such  cooperation  is  bound  to  raise  the 
standards  of  American  business  life.  Such  con 
tacts  cannot  fail  to  equip  capitalist  leaders  to  meet 
any  demands  which  the  new  world  may  make  upon 
them. 

Such  contacts  may  help  to  teach  mankind  that 
there  is  no  solution  of  present  ills  except  pro 
ducing  more  and  consuming  less.  The  waste  of 
war  cannot  be  paid  for  by  printing-press  money. 
There  is  and  can  be  only  one  answer  to  the  pres 
ent  international  financial  difficulties,  namely,  an 
increase  in  production  and  an  increase  in  saving 
on  the  part  of  the  people  of  every  country  of  the 
world.  This  necessity  cannot  be  obviated  by  any 
economic  scheme  which  human  ingenuity  can  devise. 
In  proportion  as  the  world  shall  work  and  save, 
produce  more  exportable  goods  and  reduce  paper 
currency,  just  in  that  proportion  can  budgets  be 
equalized  and  inflation  reduced.  While  a  fuller  co 
ordination  of  Europe's  resources  would  increase  her 
economic  strength  and  financial  credit,  yet  without 
an  increase  in  production  and  saving,  and  the  prod 
ucts  of  such  effort,  we  cannot  hope  for  a  betterment 
of  the  present  exchange  situation.  This  remedy  is 
at  the  present  time  simple  and  unspectacular.  And 
it  will  be  applied  exactly  insofar  as  human  beings 
are  willing  to  assume  the  burdens  and  undertake 
the  sacrifices  which  underlie  all  human  progress. 


AN  AMERICAN   FEDERATION  OF   BRAINS 

THE  work  of  running  a  modern  nation  is  a 
matter  of  business,  and,  indeed,  big  business.  It 
may  be  possible  to  show  that  neither  the  business 
leaders  nor  the  public  realize  how  fully  the  economic 
developments  of  the  past  decade  have  forced  upon 
governments  everywhere  a  great  variety  of  in 
dustrial,  commercial  and  financial  problems. 
Public  servants  without  previous  business  training 
have  had  to  rely  increasingly  upon  practical  mer 
chants  and  bankers.  Governments  have  largely 
ceased  to  regard  great  business  executives  as  un 
desirable  citizens,  because  the  heads  of  govern 
ment  must  have  the  help  of  these  men  or  fail  in  the 
discharge  of  their  heavy  public  responsibilities. 

President  Wilson  perhaps  slightly  over-stated  the 
case  in  his  speech  in  Turin,  Italy,  in  January, 
1919,  when  he  said: 

"The  plans  of  the  modern  world  are  made  in  the 
counting  house.  The  men  that  do  the  business  of 
the  world  now  shape  the  destinies  of  the  world,  and 
peace  or  war  is  now  in  a  large  measure  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  conduct  the  commerce  of  the  world." 

This  statement  is  impressive  when  one  considers 
that  its  author  has  had  in  the  past  decade  an  al- 

160 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    161 

most  unequaled  opportunity  to  observe  and  weigh 
the  elements  which  comprise  our  modern  world; 
and  it  is  particularly  significant  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Wilson  has  never  been  inclined  to  give 
more  than  a  fair  share  of  consideration  to  the  views 
of  business. 

The  war  has  left  to  the  world  problems  of  such 
variety  and  magnitude  as  to  require  more  of  the 
kind  of  leadership  which  may  rightly  be  expected 
of  business  men.  The  demand  for  leadership  is  as 
old  as  the  human  race.  If  all  men  were  placed 
on  an  equal  plane  on  Monday,  the  great  ma 
jority  would  be  lined  up  behind  a  few  leaders 
by  Saturday. 

The  mob  rule  tendency  all  over  the  world  today 
is  not  due  to  the  failure  of  the  principle  of  leader 
ship,  but  to  a  failure  in  the  quality  of  leadership. 
The  Bolsheviki  are  working  in  an  atmosphere  where 
leadership  was  characterized  for  centuries  by  every 
vice  which  leadership  can  assume  —  autocracy, 
cruelty  and  injustice.  Because  kaisers,  czars  and 
princes  abused  the  power  which  came  to  them, 
people  in  Russia  and  elsewhere  came  to  believe  that 
leadership  was  a  failure.  But  inevitably  leadership 
must  emerge  from  mob  rule.  In  America  up  to  this 
time  we  have  been  very  fortunate.  In  the  words 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt:  "Thanks  to  the  teaching 
and  the  practice  of  men  whom  we  must  revere  as 
leaders,  of  the  men  like  Washington  and  Lincoln, 
we  have  hitherto  escaped  the  twin  gulfs  of  despot- 


162  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

ism  and  mob  rule."  This  "middle-of-the-road" 
policy  is  not  easy  to  determine.  In  fact  it  calls  for 
a  keener  sort  of  leadership  than  is  necessary  to  win 
men  and  women  to  the  enthusiastic  support  of 
brilliant  subversive  doctrines.  Radical  leadership 
is  at  the  present  time  more  conscious  and  popular 
than  at  any  time  in  our  history. 

A  sense  of  responsibility  for  leadership  is  the 
highest  product  of  any  system  of  education  and 
sound  public  leadership  is  the  most  difficult  of  all. 
Business  men  as  a  class  have  certainly  not  sought 
to  take  a  predominant  part  in  public  affairs.  Busi 
ness  success  usually  carries  with  it  an  implication 
of  conservatism,  a  careful  attention  to  work  and 
to  the  needs  of  clients  and  customers.  This  carries 
with  it  a  natural  hesitation  to  undertake  new 
burdens  and  an  instinctive  reluctance  to  become 
conspicuous  in  controversial  matters. 

It  is  a  sound  tendency.  No  sane  liberal  would 
advocate  turning  the  world  of  business  into  a  caucus 
or  a  perpetual  convention.  At  the  same  time  is  it 
fair  to  ask  how  the  common  interest  of  the  people, 
which  includes  obviously  the  interest  of  the  leaders 
of  business  and  their  clients,  can  properly  be  sub 
served  if  this  great  group  of  trained  and  experienced 
men  do  not  contribute  largely  to  meeting  it?  If 
public  matters  are  to  be  left  to  untrained  and  un 
experienced  men  exclusively,  can  we  consistently 
complain  if  public  business  is  badly  managed? 

This  chapter  does  not  advocate  any  sudden  entry 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    163 

of  business  men  into  the  public  forum.  It  does 
advocate  a  gradual,  consistent  increase  in  the 
thought  and  time,  not  inconsistent  with  their  busi 
ness  necessities,  which  successful  men  may  be  willing 
to  give  to  the  common  interests  and  problems  of 
the  nation.  There  have  been,  at  all  periods  of  our 
history,  business  men  who  have  given  liberally  of 
their  time,  strength  and  money  to  public  causes. 
But  the  nation  has  not  at  its  command  today  so 
much  of  this  powerful  resource  as  is  demanded  by 
the  essentially  business  problems  which  occupy  the 
Government.  All  the  service  business  men  can 
possibly  find  time  to  render  is  called  for  in  the 
present  situation. 

It  should  not  be  lost  sight  of  that  there  have  been 
very  good  reasons  why  this  participation  has  not 
been  more  extensive.  The  reasons  are,  first,  that 
American  business  men  have  been  deeply  devoted 
to  their  own  work.  They  have  learned  the  value 
of  concentration.  They  have  done  a  century's 
work  in  the  past  generation.  Second,  as  a  conse 
quence  of  this  absorption  they  have  actually  not 
had  time  to  give  much  thought  to  national  prob 
lems,  or  to  read  widely,  or  to  engage  in  conferences 
that  laid  bare  the  roots  of  things,  as  distinguished 
from  conventions  and  banquets  that  played  bright 
colors  over  the  surfaces  of  great  issues.  Third, 
those  men  who  have  felt  a  personal  responsibility 
for  betterment  of  conditions  have  lacked  ability  or 
inclination  to  get  together.  As  a  result,  instead  of 


164  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

perfecting  cooperative  organizations  of  ability  in 
which  common  effort  would  submerge  jealousies 
and  check  personal  hobbies  in  the  interest  of  care 
fully  thought-out  plans,  we  have  had  a  succession 
of  purely  personal  utterances  on  economics  and 
business  from  isolated  individuals.  Their  speeches 
and  pamphlets  have  been  interesting.  They  have 
attracted  attention  in  the  press.  But  compared 
with  the  highly  organized  efforts  of  the  radicals 
they  have  been  ineffectual. 

What  we  need  today  is  an  American  Federation 
of  Brains.  We  need  a  working  organization  of 
leaders  in  all  lines  of  activity,  including  labor  as 
well  as  capital,  to  get  at  the  heart  of  current  ques 
tions,  and  to  make  use  of  the  great  publicity  ma 
chinery  of  the  country  to  place  its  conclusions  before 
the  people.  Individualism,  which  is  at  the  basis  of 
much  of  the  success  and  inspiration  which  underlies 
American  achievement,  is  not  the  prime  factor  in 
shaping  a  national  industrial  policy.  The  thought 
and  inspiration  of  individual  thinkers,  radical  and 
conservative,  is  the  raw  material  of  a  working  policy. 
But  without  the  machinery  of  constant  study, 
analysis,  conference,  thinking  aloud,  compromise, 
tabulation  and  public  presentation,  the  raw  material 
produced  with  so  much  labor  will,  so  far  as  public 
benefit  is  concerned,  disintegrate. 

Another  important  aspect  of  the  situation  is  that 
many  business  men  feel  the  need  for  greater  co 
operation  on  the  part  of  trained  and  successful  men 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    165 

in  all  fields.  We  have  grown  so  big  in  our  modern 
city  life  that  we  cannot  get  together  and  know  each 
other  without  the  same  kind  of  definite  and  careful 
work  which  characterizes  the  highly  efficient  or 
ganizations  we  have  developed  in  the  fields  of  labor 
or  politics  or  business.  We  don't  know  who  our 
leaders  are.  A  man  came  to  New  York  from  the 
West  not  long  ago  and  asked  the  manager  of  a 
leading  hotel,  "Who  are  your  great  preachers?" 
He  received  no  answer.  There  is  an  answer,  and 
we  should  see  to  it  that  the  answer  is  more  generally 
known,  just  as  we  should  have  an  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  the  identity  of  our  great  actors, 
architects,  editors  and  doctors,  whose  names  are 
not  familiar  to  the  majority  of  men,  women  and 
children  who  can  tell  with  surprising  accuracy  the 
names  of  our  leading  automobiles  or  shaving  soaps. 
There  is  too  little  face-to-face  exchange  of  ideas 
on  the  part  of  successful  men  in  widely  differing 
fields  of  activity.  Men  see  too  much  of  associates 
in  their  own  limited  line  of  business.  To  get  any 
community  of  action  it  is  considered  necessary  to 
raise  a  substantial  sum  of  money  and  send  a  series 
of  pamphlets  and  letters  to  a  group  of  people  who 
often  live  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles  of  each  other. 
Business  men  and  bankers,  partly  because  as  a 
group  they  have  more  executive  experience,  more 
surplus  funds  or  a  greater  willingness  to  apply 
such  funds  to  public  interests,  have  come  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  prime  movers  in  starting  any 


166  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

project  tending  to  influence  public  opinion.  Men 
and  women  not  in  the  business  or  financial  world 
should  be  called  upon  far  more  than  at  present 
for  leadership  in  such  undertakings.  Business  men 
should  be  joined  by  clergymen,  editors,  engineers, 
artists,  college  professors,  and  physicians,  and  other 
sound,  clear  thinking  citizens  with  a  wide  range 
of  experience,  all  combining  to  produce  that  result 
which  is  the  liberal  American  attitude. 

Business  men,  simply  because  they  are  conspicu 
ously  successful  in  one  line  are  readily  assumed  to 
be  omniscient.  Locke,  in  one  of  his  essays  on  edu 
cation  remarks,  "The  mistake  is,  that  he  that  is 
found  reasonable  in  one  thing  is  concluded  to  be 
so  in  all,  and  to  think  or  say  otherwise  is  thought 
so  august  an  affront  and  so  senseless  a  censure, 
that  nobody  ventures  to  do  it." 

We  certainly  know  by  this  time  that  the  man 
who  has  made  a  great  fortune  in  the  manufacture 
of  telescopes  or  carpets  ought  not  to  be  considered 
a  final  and  conclusive  authority  on  questions  of 
politics,  sociology,  and  art.  Contact  with  success 
ful  business  men  brings  out  the  fact  that  they 
would  be  delighted  to  be  relieved  of  some  of  the 
tremendous  pressure  which  is  put  upon  them  to 
express  views  upon  subjects  of  which  they  know 
little  and  to  take  the  lead  in  a  variety  of  movements 
of  a  public  character,  simply  because  no  one  else 
can  be  found  who  is  willing  to  do  the  work  or  pro 
vide  the  money.  Mr.  Taft  is  quoted  as  saying  to  a 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     167 

group  he  was  addressing  in  a  small  middle  Western 
city  that  over  a  period  of  a  dozen  years  he  had 
been  there  four  or  five  times  to  advocate  as 
many  public-spirited  measures,  and  each  time  he 
met  the  same  thirteen  men. 

The  full  value  of  a  wider  cooperation  was 
brought  home  to  many  thousands  of  people  during 
the  war  when  a  united  nation  achieved  an  unprec 
edented  result  on  the  basis  of  universal  association 
for  an  unselfish  ideal.  Local  committees  repre 
sentative  of  the  various  communities  throughout 
the  nation  brought  the  combined  intelligence  and 
influence  of  all  phases  of  Americanism  to  bear  on 
a  great  purpose,  and  achieved  it  efficiently  and 
speedily.  It  would  be  a  great  tragedy  if  little 
personal  problems  crowd  out  of  our  minds  the 
splendid  lesson  which  came  to  us  during  the  war, 
of  the  results  to  be  obtained  by  the  whole-hearted 
cooperation  of  a  great  people.  This  ideal  is  no 
longer  to  be  regarded  as  an  experiment  but  as  a 
practical  measure  which  was  proved  to  be  workable. 

Let  us  spread  the  responsibility  of  leadership. 
But  after  we  have  broadened  the  base  upon  which 
leadership  rests  it  is  still  inevitable  that  business 
and  financial  men  will  take  a  prominent  part  in 
the  affairs  of  this  country,  because  this  group  is 
recruited  by  a  process  of  selection  and  competition 
from  among  the'rsoundest  and  most  energetic  ele 
ments  in  e.very  community  throughout  the  nation. 

If  it  is  true  that  "the  men  who  do  the  business 


i68  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  the  world  now  shape  the  destinies  of  the  world," 
it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  for  the  nation  to 
take  stock  of  its  business  men.  Inasmuch  as  the 
business  community  of  Wall  Street  is  so  prominent 
in  the  business  world  of  America,  it  is  of  importance 
for  Americans  to  know  something  of  what  Wall 
Street  is,  what  the  community  stands  for. 

In  this  discussion  much  that  will  be  said  of  Wall 
Street  men  applies  equally  to  men  of  business  and 
bankers  the  country  over.  A  discussion  of  some  of 
the  phases  of  the  life  of  this  particular  community 
will  serve  to  bring  out  the  obstacles  which  have 
been  in  the  way  of  a  fuller  realization  by  business 
men  everywhere  of  their  ideals  of  public  service. 

Wall  Street  is  today  the  great  Mecca  of  trained 
men  from  all  over  America.  This  vast  industrial 
and  financial  clearing  house  of  the  Nation  affords 
irresistibly  attractive  motives  for  ambition  and 
achievement.  And  the  predominant  motive  today 
is  not  money  —  but  rather  the  absorbing  fascina 
tion  of  the  day's  work,  the  love  of  the  game.  It  is 
important  from  all  points  of  view  that  the  country 
should  understand  this.  One  reason  why  it  is  im 
portant  is  because  the  welfare  of  a  tremendous 
number  of  people  is  affected  by  the  transactions 
which  center  in  this  part  of  New  York  City.  The 
work  of  Wall  Street  touches  intimately  the  life  and 
happiness  of  the  average  man  and  woman,  for  on 
many  important  subjects,  as  New  York  thinks  so 
thinks  the  country.  Scores  of  movements  of  great 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    169 

national  importance  originate  in  Wall  Street;  and 
while  many  of  them  succeed,  many  of  them  are 
hampered  simply  because  the  men  who  guide  them 
are  connected  with  the  financial  life  of  America. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  glance  briefly  at  the 
physical  features  of  the  little  understood  Wall 
Street  district.  Tradition  has  it  that  in  1644 
William  Kieft,  Governor  of  New  Amsterdam,  caused 
a  wall  to  be  erected  at  the  north  end  of  the  little 
settlement  to  shut  in  a  small  section  at  the  southern 
end  of  Manhattan  Island  for  the  purpose  of  pre 
venting  the  straying  of  cattle  and  to  afford  protec 
tion  to  the  inhabitants  against  Indian  attacks. 
The  erection  of  this  barrier  practically  determined 
the  location  of  Wall  Street,  for  in  1653  when  Peter 
Stuyvesant  erected  a  stockade  to  defend  the  city 
from  the  British,  a  strip  of  ground  forty  to  fifty 
feet  below  the  cattle  guard  was  selected  for  the  new 
wall  which  was  then  built  on  the  line  of  the  present 
Wall  Street.  At  the  close  of  the  Seventeenth 
Century  the  wall  was  torn  down  because  it  had 
outgrown  its  usefulness  and  involved  an  expensive 
upkeep.  The  stones  were  used  for  the  foundation 
of  the  new  City  Hall  which  was  erected  at  the 
corner  of  Wall  and  Nassau  Streets. 

From  this  time  forward  Wall  Street  was  the  center 
of  the  public  and  social  life  of  the  city.  On  July 
16,  1776,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
read  from  the  steps  of  the  City  Hall.  At  the  close 
of  the  Revolutionary  War,  Alexander  Hamilton 


170  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

and  Aaron  Burr  moved  to  New  York,  Hamilton 
opening  an  office  at  58  (now  33)  Wall  Street.  Burr 
lived  at  10  Little  Queen  (now  Cedar)  Street,  part 
of  the  present  site  of  the  National  Bank  of  Com 
merce  Building.  In  1784  the  Continental  Congress 
expressed  its  desire  to  establish  headquarters  in 
New  York  and  the  City  Hall  was  placed  at  its  dis 
posal.  The  following  year  all  the  representatives 
of  the  national,  state  and  municipal  authority  were 
located  in  Wall  Street  and  a  center  of  interest  was 
established  which  determined  the  location  of  im 
portant  business  and  financial  houses,  thus  estab 
lishing  a  tradition  which  has  prevailed  up  to  the 
present  time. 

In  1788  the  City  Hall  was  rebuilt  and  enlarged, 
and  the  new  structure  on  the  same  site,  completed 
in  the  following  year,  was  called  Federal  Hall.  On 
April  6,  1789,  a  canvass  of  the  electoral  vote  taken 
in  Federal  Hall  resulted  in  the  unanimous  election 
of  George  Washington  as  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  on  April  30  of  the  same  year 
Washington  was  inaugurated  there.  Federal  Hall 
remained  the  seat  of  the  Government  until  in  1790 
headquarters  were  transferred  to  Philadelphia. 

Gradually  the  growth  of  business  drove  the  resi 
dential  district  to  the  northward  and  by  1830 
Federal  Hall  had  disappeared  and  Wall  Street  had 
become  no  longer  a  residential  street  but  was  en 
tirely  transformed  for  the  purposes  of  business 
which  very  soon  spread  over  the  neighboring  section 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     171 

north,  south  and  west,  until  today  when  one  speaks 
of  Wall  Street,  or  simply  "The  Street,"  the  district 
is  referred  to  which  may  be  roughly  defined  as  in 
cluding  Broadway  from  the  headquarters  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  at  No.  26  Broadway,  for  an 
indefinite  distance  of  several  blocks,  lined  on  both 
sides  with  a  variety  of  banks  and  office  buildings, 
running  north  to  Maiden  Lane  or  beyond.  The  sec 
tion  includes  Wall  Street  itself  from  Trinity  Church 
east  as  far  as  Pearl  Street,  together  with  many  of  the 
streets  w4iich  run  north  and  south  from  Wall  Street. 
It  covers  approximately  twenty-five  blocks  with  an 
area  of  thirty-five  acres. 

This  district  includes  the  largest  and  tallest  office 
buildings  in  the  world  which  have  grown  up  in 
response  to  the  demands  of  a  working  population 
and  a  transient  customer  population  of  approxi 
mately  1,000,000  people  whose  convenience  demands 
a  centralized  location  of  the  facilities  necessary  in 
the  transaction  of  a  substantial  proportion  of  a  great 
nation's  financial  business.  Among  these  office 
buildings  is  the  Equitable,  forty  stories  high,  whose 
sixty-one  elevators  transport  nearly  100,000  persons 
daily.  Nearby,  practically  unchanged  in  its  ap 
pearance  since  the  early  days  of  the  city,  is  Trinity 
Church,  \vith  its  churchyard  in  which  are  buried 
many  men  intimately  connected  with  the  history  of 
the  state  and  nation,  including  Alexander  Hamilton 
and  Robert  Fulton.  Across  the  street  from  Trinity 
Church  is  the  First  National  Bank  Building,  located 


172  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

on  a  small  half  lot,  which  is  probably  the  most 
valuable  piece  of  property  in  New  York,  having 
cost  approximately  $525  a  square  foot. 

From  a  broader  standpoint  Wall  Street  is  the 
principal  center  of  the  credit  and  other  financial 
operations  of  the  nation,  and  of  the  world.  Within 
this  radius  are  located  thirty-five  of  the  largest 
national  banks  and  trust  companies  of  the  country,  - 
organizations  which  reported  in  September,  1919,  a 
combined  capital,  surplus  and  undivided  profits  of 
$583,875,200  and  deposits  of  $5,464,413,000.  These 
institutions  supply  a  very  large  part  of  the  credit 
for  the  basic  industries  which  maintain  the  life  and 
make  possible  the  comfortable  existence  of  the 
population  of  the  country.  Here,  too,  are  the  various 
markets  which  provide  for  the  exchange  of  securities 
representing  the  great  industries  of  the  nation,  and 
the  principal  commodity  markets.  So  many  billions 
of  dollars  change  hands  in  a  day  to  pay  for  the  vast 
exchanges  which  must  take  place  to  feed  and  clothe 
and  transport  our  population  that  the  big  banks 
must  be  near  one  another  and  within  reasonable 
distance  of  the  Clearing  House,  and  the  Federal 
Reserve  Bank. 

What  do  these  banks  do?  They  supply  the  life 
blood  for  the  transaction  of  essential  business  and 
with  various  shifts  of  workers  are  practically  never 
closed  day  or  night,  year  after  year.  A  great  com 
mercial  bank  is  simply  one  phase  of  the  far-flung 
commerce  of  America.  Its  function  is  the  accumula- 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    173 

tion  of  a  reservoir  of  credit,  and  the  direction  of  this 
credit  into  those  channels  where  it  is  needed  in  order 
that  the  business  of  the  country  may  be  facilitated. 
This  credit,  ultimately  based  on  gold,  constitutes  an 
order  on  a  portion  of  the  actual  physical  wealth  of 
the  country;  that  is,  on  its  raw  materials,  its  ma 
chinery,  its  labor  and  other  agencies  for  the  produc 
tion  of  goods. 

Thus,  a  farmer  in  Iowa  sells  his  crops  in  the 
Autumn,  receiving  his  pay  in  the  form  of  a  check 
on  his  local  bank.  He  does  not  cash  it  but  deposits 
it;  that  is,  a  credit  is  established  to  his  account  in 
his  bank.  The  amount  is  above  his  current  needs, 
and  his  bank,  by  deposit  in  a  New  York  bank, 
establishes  for  its  use  and  that  of  its  customers  a 
New  York  credit.  Later  on,  the  New  York  bank  is 
called  upon  to  finance  a  shipment  of  rubber  from 
Singapore,  in  order  that  an  American  rubber  manu 
facturer  may  maintain  his  supply  of  raw  material  and 
thus  be  enabled  to  make  tires  for  his  next  season's 
requirements.  It  is  enabled  to  do  so  by  utilizing 
the  accumulations  of  credit  from  widely  scattered 
sources,  among  them  the  Iowa  farmer's  original 
deposit,  and  the  distant  farmer,  by  the  marvelous 
organization  of  American  credit,  made  possible  by 
the  commercial  banks  of  Wall  Street  and  other 
financial  centers,  has  thus  been  able  to  assist  in 
financing  the  shipment  of  the  rubber  which  must 
reach  this  country  months  in  advance  of  this  very 
farmer's  demand  for  tires. 


174  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  groups  of  men  whose  business  it  is  to  supply 
credit  to  productive  industries  are  just  as  essential 
to  the  industry  of  any  nation  or  community  as  is 
the  coal  to  a  locomotive. 

What  else  does  Wall  Street  do?  For  one  thing  it 
provides  in  the  Stock  Exchange  a  market  for  se 
curities.  It  is  impossible  for  a  new  concern,  whose 
credit  is  not  established,  to  go  to  a  bank  and  procure 
the  money  with  which  to  put  to  the  test  the  skill 
of  the  management  and  the  working  force,  and  the 
question  as  to  whether  or  not  the  public  will  buy 
the  output  of  their  plant.  In  such  a  case  the  surplus 
funds  of  individuals  must  be  called  into  play  and 
consequently  the  company's  bonds  and  stocks  are 
offered  for  public  sale.  The  Stock  Exchange  affords 
a  centralized  meeting  place  for  funds  which  are 
available  for  such  investment  or  speculation,  and 
performs  a  service  for  hundreds  of  small  companies, 
which  could  not  function  without  drawing  on  the 
available  investment  funds  of  the  country,  the  same 
service  which  the  Liberty  Loan  campaigns  performed 
for  the  Government  on  a  vast  scale  in  time  of  war. 
The  Stock  Exchange  is  managed  by  a  Board  of 
Governors.  They  do  not  guarantee  that  every  group 
of  business  men  who  get  together  will  earn  large 
profits  and  thus  be  able  to  pay  interest  on  their 
bonds  and  dividends  on  their  stock.  They  do  in 
vestigate  each  company  carefully,  however,  and  see 
to  it  that  the  securities  offered  to  the  public  actually 
represent  what  they  are  held  out  as  representing. 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     175 

The  individual  judgment  of  the  man  or  woman  who 
buys  this  stock  will  always  have  to  be  called  upon. 
The  investor  who  does  not  want  to  confine  surplus 
funds  to  Government  securities  paying  a  moderate 
rate  of  interest  must  take  the  chances  which  always 
go  with  ventures  dependent  upon  human  judgment 
and  the  changing  conditions  of  economic  life  in  a 
great  nation;  and  the  chances  they  take  with  their 
money  will  be  compensated,  in  proportion  to  the 
supply  of  money  available,  at  rates  commensurate 
with  the  risk  taken,  and  with  the  chances  of  success 
of  the  venture. 

The  Stock  Exchange  is  the  nation's  chief  market, 
not  for  actual  goods  and  merchandise,  but  for  se 
curities  issued  by  business  men  in  every  state  in  the 
Union  representing  the  production,  manufacture, 
transportation,  distribution  or  sale  of  raw  materials 
and  finished  products  amounting  in  value  to  possibly 
one-fifth  of  the  total  material  wealth  of  the  United 
States.  The  great  fairs  of  the  early  economic 
development  of  the  world  called  for  the  periodic 
assembling  of  furs,  or  cloths,  or  foodstuffs,  or 
whatever  the  industry  of  men  and  women  within 
the  range  of  a  few  hundred  miles  might  produce. 
The  market  of  today  facilitates  the  continuous  ex 
change  of  the  products  of  an  entire  nation,  in  endless 
variety. 

The  element  of  speculation  is  a  large  one.  We 
may  feel  that  the  purely  speculative  features  of  the 
stock  markets  are  abused;  but  the  tendency  toward 


176  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

speculation  cannot  be  done  away  with  until  human 
nature  itself  is  abolished.  The  time  will  never  come 
when  honest  men  will  cease  to  dream  dreams  of 
sudden  fortunes.  And  the  day  will  never  arrive 
when  men  and  women  will  cease  to  venture  their 
money  on  the  stimulus  of  these  dreams,  nor  when 
they  will  cease  to  complain  of  others  if  they  them 
selves  are  unsuccessful.  There  is  one  absolutely 
sure  prescription  for  avoiding  loss  of  money  in 
speculation,  and  only  one;  namely,  don't  speculate. 
So  long  as  great  ventures  require  the  risking  of 
money,  so  long  must  groups  of  men  of  vision  and 
daring,  entrepreneurs,  be  called  upon  to  survey  new 
fields  and  risk  fortunes  in  the  interest  of  progress. 
When  these  ventures  are  in  their  infancy  they  must 
not  be  permitted  to  get  into  the  hands  of  small  in 
vestors.  They  call  for  the  surplus  that  men  and 
women  can  afford  to  lose.  These  ventures  must  be 
kept  clean;  the  standard  of  intelligence  and  technical 
skill  applied  to  the  analysis  of  new  ventures  must  be 
constantly  improved.  But  as  to  abolishing  the  se 
curities  market  itself,  we  might  as  well  advocate 
abolishing  railroads  because  transportation  by  coach 
and  four  was  healthier  and  more  soothing  to  the 
nerves. 

In  addition  to  this  principal  market  for  securities, 
there  is  a  group  of  men  who  deal  in  a  class  of  stocks 
which  is  less  established  and  well  known.  These 
are  the  so-called  "unlisted"  securities.  From  time 
to  time  they  arrive  at  a  state  of  stability  which 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     177 

justifies  their  listing  on  the  Stock  Exchange.  Many 
of  them  represent  highly  useful  undertakings.  Some 
of  them  represent  the  production  of  gold,  which  is 
the  basis  of  our  currency  system.  Others  simply 
represent  the  belief  or  the  hope  that  a  certain  article 
is  the  one  thing  that  every  American  family  will 
want  to  have  in  its  home.  There  is  a  very  dramatic 
element  to  the  periodic  offering  of  this  class  of  stocks 
and  the  occasional  brilliant  success  of  one,  while 
hundreds  are  failing.  As  long  as  they  stand  for 
actual  values  or  represent  an  honest  belief  that 
values  will  accrue,  and  are  put  out  without  mis 
representation,  they  are  economically  sound. 

Broadly  speaking,  however,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
leaders  of  business,  to  confine  speculation  in  every 
possible  way  to  the  people  who  can  afford  to  specu 
late,  and  to  conduct  an  unceasing  campaign  of  edu 
cation,  so  that  the  widow  and  orphan  who  should  be 
investing  in  Liberty  Bonds  or  other  unquestionable 
securities,  and  receiving  a  certain  income  of  from 
four  to  seven  per  cent  are  not  induced  by  a  statement 
of  half-truths  to  risk  capital  on  a  prospect  of  fabulous 
returns.  Such  persons  cannot  afford  to  take  such 
risks  and  it  is  a  false  condition  which  permits  them 
to  be  led  to  the  point  of  indulging  in  such  ventures. 
The  leaders  of  opinion  in  Wall  Street  are  a  unit  in 
opposing  this  tendency,  but  they  will  always  be 
blamed  for  the  unhappy  results  which  are  of  daily 
occurrence,  until  they  exercise  their  public  responsi 
bility  of  leadership  in  the  nation  by  making  clear 


178  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  principles  underlying  investment  and  speculation 
to  everyone  who  has  a  dollar  to  invest. 

Large  financial  transactions  have  always  excited 
the  imagination.  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  necessarily 
the  most  scrupulous  people  who  are  most  easily 
moved  by  the  ambition  to  acquire  a  substantial 
fortune  without  doing  any  work,  and  consequently 
we  always  have  with  us  in  Wall  Street  a  few  human 
parasites  lurking  around  the  edges  of  honesty,  at 
tempting  to  make  a  shady  deal  here  and  a  crooked 
trade  there,  preferring  this  kind  of  life  with  its 
occasional  affluent  days  and  its  accompanying  excite 
ment  to  any  legitimate  occupation.  These  men  al 
most  inevitably  end  their  lives  without  a  dollar, 
in  jail  or  out  of  jail.  But  the  men  who  pay  the  rent 
on  banking  properties  or  office  buildings  in  the  lower 
end  of  Manhattan  can  no  more  prevent  dishonestly 
inclined  people  renting  office  space  in  their  neighbor 
hood  than  can  Mr.  Frohman  or  Mr.  Belasco  prevent 
undesirable  elements  from  existing  in  the  midst  of 
legitimate  and  highly  artistic  achievements  in  the 
vicinity  of  Broadway  and  Forty-second  Street,  or 
than  the  city  authorities  can  prevent  the  good 
name  of  New  York  being  tarnished  by  wrong-doing 
in  any  part  of  the  city. 

Dishonest  traders  and  operators  sooner  or  later 
reveal  their  true  character  and  are  forced  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  their  crimes,  to  the  accompaniment  of 
extensive  publicity  in  the  newspapers.  But  this 
publicity  as  a  rule  does  not  enable  the  general  public 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     179 

to  distinguish  between  the  occasional  frauds  and  the 
vast  bulk  of  business  in  the  financial  section  which  is 
transacted  not  only  according  to  law  but  according 
to  the  best  ethics  of  American  business  life.  It  is 
time  that  this  majority  had  more  to  say  for  itself. 
The  leaders  of  the  banking  and  financial  community 
in  the  United  States  can  only  stand  or  fall  on  the 
basis  first  of  their  service  to  the  public  and  a  fair 
recompense  for  that  service,  and  second,  the  fullest 
public  understanding  of  that  service,  and  com 
plete  public  recognition  of  its  economic  value  and 
importance. 

From  the  standpoint  of  truth-telling  the  American 
system  of  financial  credit  analysis  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  structures  ever  built  up  in  the  progress 
of  the  world.  Its  sources  of  information,  its  accuracy, 
its  far-reaching  tentacles  form  the  elements  for  a 
dramatic  and  fascinating  story.  Compared  with  it 
the  German  Secret  Service  and  propaganda  organiza 
tion  was  puerile.  What  is  wanted  here  is  the  truth  — 
the  truth  about  human  beings  clever  and  stupid, 
subtle  and  obvious,  honest  and  dishonest.  It  is 
truth  raw  and  unadulterated,  without  undue  regard 
for  sentiment  or  past  successes  or  the  happy  dreams 
of  profits  which  fill  the  minds  of  men.  This  vast 
system,  Argus-eyed,  reliable,  is  the  rock  upon  which 
credit  is  built.  It  is  the  foundation  which  enables 
billions  of  dollars  worth  of  goods  to  pass  and  repass 
with  the  use  of  scarcely  a  dollar  in  gold.  It  is  the 
white  light  of  fact  in  which  the  slightest  blemish  on 


i8o  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  good  name  of  an  individual  is  brought  out  in 
sharp  relief.  It  is  the  new  world  of  business  and 
commerce,  which  has  taken  the  place  of  barter  and 
cash  dealing,  the  commerce  built  upon  credit  in  the 
good  faith  of  men.  And  on  this  firm  basis  rests  the 
vast  structure  of  agriculture,  mining,  manufacture, 
transportation,  and  salesmanship,  the  production  and 
delivery  to  the  ultimate  consumer  of  all  the  neces 
saries  of  life. 

Wall  Street  men,  trained  in  this  rigid  school,  or 
subject  to  its  dominion,  are  equipped  with  an  element 
of  character  which  goes  to  the  root  of  public  re 
sponsibility.  They  cannot  afford  to  have  American 
business  used  as  a  political  foot-ball.  America  as  a 
whole  cannot  afford  it.  Little  good  it  will  do  the 
people  of  America  to  live  under  the  traditions  of 
democracy  if  the  machinery  of  business,  which  is 
the  basis  of  their  existence,  is  under  suspicion.  Let 
them  study  the  standards  of  business  men.  If  they 
prove  to  be  sound  let  them  rally  to  their  support. 
Let  them  hold  business  leaders  to  strict  account- 
bility  as  they  hold  their  other  servants  in  public 
office  to  strict  accountability.  But  let  both  be 
assumed  to  be  fair  and  honorable  until  proved 
otherwise. 

An  incident  which  occurred  in  the  early  months 
of  the  war  is  typical  of  the  kind  of  unfairness 
which  does  great  harm.  A  public  official  in  a 
speech  in  the  West  accused  a  ring  of  New  York 
financiers  of  interfering  for  private  gain  with  the 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    181 

public  financing  of  the  Government.  Happily  a 
leader  in  local  affairs  had  the  courage  and  ability 
to  meet  the  charge  squarely.  He  wired  the  public 
official  as  follows: 

A  New  York  newspaper  this  morning  reports 
that  in  an  interview  yesterday  you  stated  that 
"a  ring  of  New  York  financiers  is  hampering 
the  Government  in  its  Liberty  Loan  campaign, 
endeavoring  to  make  it  a  partial  failure  so  that 
the  next  Loan  will  bear  a  higher  rate  of  interest. 
These  men  are  the  spiritual  descendants  of  the 
ring  that  operated  in  just  such  an  emergency 
during  the  Civil  War,  and  by  their  methods 
forced  the  price  of  war  bonds  to  40  and  50, 
and  one  day  to  39.  It  is  the  duty  of  every 
citizen  to  make  this  Loan  a  success  in  spite  of 
these  New  York  traitors. "  Please  telegraph 
advising  me  whether  you  are  correctly  quoted 
as  above,  either  literally  or  in  substance. 

The  public  official  replied  stating  in  substance 
that  he  had  withdrawn  his  charges.  His  letter, 
however,  contained  these  significant  phrases : 

On  the  1 3th  in  an  editorial  entitled  "How 
Wall  Street  Goes  to  War,"  a  New  York  news 
paper  said:  "In  ordinary  times  Stock  Exchange 
sentiment  is  not  easy  to  gauge.  Today,  how 
ever,  he  who  runs  may  read.  It  is  against  the 
United  States. "  This  paper  is  published  under 
your  nose.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  read 
these  editorials  in  this  newspaper.  The  people 
out  West  read  them,  I  among  the  rest,  and  it 
was  not  a  very  violent  conclusion,  as  it  is  sup- 


1 82  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

posed  to  be  one  of  the  great  and  leading  lights 
in  the  newspaper  realm,  that  the  paper  knew 
what  it  was  talking  about. 

The  charges  were  withdrawn.  But  they  had  been 
made  publicly,  and  were  widely  quoted  throughout 
the  nation.  In  this  case  the  public  official  must 
have  known  that  the  fact  that  Liberty  Bonds  ,v*re 
selling  below  par  on  the  Stock  Exchange  simply 
meant  that  the  price  quoted  was  the  price  the 
American  people  as  a  whole  were  willing  to  pay  for 
these  securities  in  the  open  market  at  that  time. 
The  supply  was  greater  than  the  demand.  He  also 
knew  that  if  this  market  had  not  been  available 
many  thousands  of  patriotic  firms  and  individuals 
who  have  sudden  needs  for  funds  to  conduct  their 
business  and  must  have  a  ready  market  would  not 
have  been  able  to  buy  bonds  at  all.  Without  the 
facilities  of  the  Stock  Exchange  the  Government 
could  not  have  conducted  its  financial  operations 
as  it  did.  By  way  of  partly  offsetting  the  false  im 
pression  created  a  letter  was  sent  to  the  public 
official  which  read  in  part  as  follows: 

It  seems  apparent  that  at  no  time  did  you 
have  the  slightest  ground  for  publicly  or  privately 
charging  the  most  serious  crime  in  time  of  war, 
"treason,"  against  a  group  of  unnamed  men;  that 
the  basis  of  your  remarks  was  not  as  you  at  first 
stated,  "sources  of  information,"  but  two  edi 
torials  in  a  New  York  newspaper,  which  simply  ex 
pressed  the  opinions  and  conclusions  of  the  author 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS     183 

of  the  editorials  regarding  the  stock  market,  and 
that  your  so-called  retraction  sought  to  imply  that 
other  acts  of  these  New  York  financiers  justified 
your  charges,  though  your  first  surmise  had 
turned  out  to  be  incorrect. 

The  facts  are  that  in  both  the  first  and  the 
second  Liberty  Loan  the  New  York  District  ex 
ceeded  every  other  district  in  the  percentage  of 
subscriptions  to  quota  apportioned,  that  it  has 
made  temporary  loans  to  the  Government  since 
our  entry  into  the  war,  exceeding  the  total  of  all 
other  districts  combined,  has  provided  not  far 
from  half  of  all  the  funds  furnished  our  Govern 
ment  for  war  purposes,  has  in  addition  purchased 
over  $100,000,000  of  the  bonds  originally  sub 
scribed  in  other  Federal  Reserve  Districts,  has 
pledged  for  banking  loans  to  insure  a  stable  money 
market  in  aid  of  the  Loan  the  sum  of  over  $300,- 
000,000;  had  in  the  first  Liberty  Loan  pledged  a 
subscription  of  $300,000,000  to  make  up  shortages 
in  other  districts,  if  required,  and  has  led  the 
country  in  its  support  of  the  Federal  Reserve 
system  by  adding  the  resources  of  State  banks  and 
trust  companies,  aggregating  nearly  $3,000,000,000 
in  a  period  of  two  months. 

Figures  have  just  been  furnished  me,  based 
upon  the  wealth  of  the  nation  in  1912,  which  I 
believe  to  be  reliable,  which  indicate  that  the  New 
York  Reserve  District  subscribed  5.13  per  cent 
of  the  total  wealth  of  the  district  to  the  Second 
Liberty  Loan,  the  New  York  percentage  being  the 
highest  of  all  the  twelve  districts. 

Your  groundless  statement  has  surely  done  no 
harm,  because  the  facts  so  completely  refute  it. 
But  the  pitiable  fact  remains  that  the  suspicion 


1 84  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  wrongdoing  by  one  part  of  the  country  is  im 
planted  in  another  section,  is  kept  alive,  nourished, 
and  developed,  usually  for  selfish  political  pur 
poses,  by  just  such  irresponsible  charges  as  yours. 

The  answer  seemed  conclusive.  But  as  is  usual 
in  such  cases  the  retraction  and  refutation  received 
less  publicity  than  the  unfounded  charge.  And  one 
more  false  impression  was  planted  in  the  public 
mind  with  regard  to  a  group  of  men  who  throughout 
the  war  did  their  part  up  to  the  limit  of  their  power, 
in  New  York,  in  Washington  and  throughout  the 
Allied  world. 

There  will  always  be  men  in  Wall  Street  who 
violate  its  traditions,  just  as  there  are  men  in  every 
walk  of  life  who  are  not  true  to  themselves.  But  it 
may  be  said  on  information  which  can  readily  be 
verified  by  anyone  interested  in  American  condi 
tions,  that  the  standards  of  business  and  of  life  of 
the  great  majority  of  men  who  make  up  what  the 
country  knows  as  Wall  Street,  can  survive  the  most 
rigid  investigation,  can  even  meet  the  searching 
idealism  of  ambitious  American  youth,  and  would, 
if  rightly  understood  by  the  people  at  large,  be 
matter  for  pride  rather  than  censure. 

In  the  critical  years  which  lie  ahead  of  us  the 
chief  thing  needed  to  give  this  community  known 
as  Wall  Street  its  proper  place  in  the  estimation  of 
the  nation  is  that  its  most  capable  men  shall  lead, 
that  they  shall  make  very  effort  to  put  themselves 
and  their  business  associates  in  the  proper  light 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    185 

before  the  country,  to  the  end  there  shall  be  no  mis 
taking  who  and  what  they  are  and  what  they  stand 
for;  and,  what  is  highly  important,  that  misleading 
representations  about  Wall  Street  shall  be  fol 
lowed  through  and  nailed  as  false  at  every  oppor 
tunity,  no  matter  what  the  trouble  or  expense. 

It  is  the  temper  of  the  situation  which  is  wrong; 
the  fundamentals  of  Wall  Street  are  sound.  The 
hostile  attitude  toward  Wall  Street  is  frequently 
based  upon  the  wide  acceptance  of  reiterated  charges 
of  wrongdoing,  repeated  accusations,  endless  in 
sinuations,  by  politicians,  by  persons  of  bad  judg 
ment  who  have  lost  money  for  themselves,  not  only 
in  New  York  but  in  almost  any  part  of  the  country; 
by  radicals  who  believe  all  men  with  large  incomes 
are  ipso  facto  dishonest;  by  clergymen  who  hold 
their  congregations  by  sensational  statements  rather 
than  spiritual  leadership;  by  those  entirely  human 
people  who  feel  richer  if,  despite  their  own  in 
ability  to  earn  a  living,  they  can  once  a  day  drag 
in  the  dust  the  good  name  of  some  business  leader; 
by  the  occasional  newspaper  which  makes  a  business 
of  cultivating  prejudice  against  groups  and  classes; 
and  sometimes  even  by  college  professors,  usually 
clear  thinking  and  constructive,  who  join  the  chorus 
of  outcry  aimed  at  the  abstraction  known  as  Wall 
Street;  and  finally  by  the  wider  public  who  believe 
what  they  hear  and  what  they  read  so  long  as  no 
one  bothers  to  offer  an  explanation  or  enter  a  denial. 
The  time  has  come  for  the  country  to  stop  denounc- 


1 86  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

ing  Wall  Street  in  the  abstract,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  calling  upon  hundreds  of  individuals  in 
Wall  Street  for  national  business  leadership. 

The  time  has  come  for  the  nation  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  the  greatest  constructive  work  —  the  most 
vigorous  and  most  enlightened  leadership  and 
unselfish  financial  support  for  the  Church,  for  art, 
for  education,  for  the  drama,  for  clean  politics,  for 
social  betterment,  for  industrial  cooperation,  for 
more  beautiful  cities,  for  the  improvement  of 
agriculture,  for  efficiency  in  national  administration, 
for  a  strong  and  independent  press,  have  a  powerful 
ally  in  New  York  City  —  and  that  the  leadership 
in  all  these  movements,  through  thousands  of  boards 
of  managers,  directors,  trustees,  advisory  com 
mittees  and  quiet  anonymous  individual  givers  and 
counselors,  involves  much  of  the  time,  energy, 
imagination  and  money  of  the  business  and  financial 
men  of  New  York,  a  typically  American  group  in  a 
typically  American  city. 

For,  if  there  is  any  part  of  America  which  is 
fundamentally  American  it  is  Wall  Street.  Here,  if 
anywhere,  the  pioneer  spirit  still  lives.  Here  is  a 
community  where  talent  and  character  are  recog 
nized  as  quickly  as  in  any  part  of  the  world  today. 
Here  is  a  community  where  the  majority  of  power  is 
in  the  hands  of  men  whose  wealth  was  not  inherited 
and  who  do  not  occupy  their  positions  because  of 
social  prestige  or  influence.  The  proportion  of  Wall 
Street  men  who  were  born  in  New  York  is  small. 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    187 

Side  by  side  are  presidents  of  corporations  who 
started  as  office  boys  and  others  who  came  out  of 
private  schools  and  great  universities.  Nearly  every 
state  is  represented.  Most  of  the  officers  or  directors 
of  the  large  banks  and  corporations  were  born  out 
side  of  New  York  City.  An  analysis  of  one  hundred 
of  the  most  important  names  shows  that  twenty- 
eight  officers  of  large  banks,  life  insurance  companies, 
telephone  and  telegraph  companies  and  express  com 
panies  were  born  in  cities  with  a  population  of  more 
than  one  million,  and  of  this  number,  only  thirteen 
were  born  in  New  York  City.  Of  the  remainder, 
only  thirty  men  were  born  in  cities  of  substantial 
size,  leaving  forty-two  who  were  born  in  little  towns 
scattered  over  the  United  States,  in  other  words, 
country  boys.  These  men  in  their  daily  life,  coming 
as  they  do  from  all  parts  of  the  country  and  being 
in  contact  as  they  are  in  the  course  of  business  with 
every  city  and  town  throughout  the  entire  nation, 
may  be  regarded  as  fairly  representative  of  the 
constructive  manhood  of  America,  with  all  its  gen 
erosity  and  all  its  selfishness,  with  all  its  con 
servatism  and  all  its  radicalism,  with  all  its  boyish 
love  of  playing  the  game,  with  its  predominant 
strain  of  liberalism  and  vigor  and  fair  dealing,  that 
have  made  this  great  young  country  the  envy  of 
the  world. 

There  is  no  better  expression  of  this  spirit  than 
the  New  Yorker's  Creed,  written  by  Bruce  Barton 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  War  Loan  campaign, 


1 88  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

and  widely  used  as  one  of  the  advertisements  of 
the  Liberty  Loan  Committee  during  the  Victory 
Loan: 

I  am  New  York  and  this  is  my  creed. 

I  am  New  York;  all  men  know  my  fame 
and  outward  aspect,  but  few  there  are  who 
know  my  heart. 

Not  out  of  my  own  loins  have  my  people 
come.  They  make  their  way  to  me  from  the 
East,  across  the  ocean,  where  the  Statue  in  my 
harbor  lights  their  spirits  with  fresh  hope. 

From  the  West,  and  South,  and  North, 
from  every  farm  and  village,  where  clean- 
hearted,  clear-eyed  boys  and  girls  have  turned 
their  faces  toward  me  as  the  home  of  oppor 
tunity. 

They  are  the  builders  who  have  made  me 
great;  and  on  what  foundation  stones,  think 
you,  have  they  built? 

On  money?    On  commerce?    On  trade? 

They  have  wrought  with  materials  more 
eternal. 

They  have  laid  my  foundations  on  Faith, 
and  fashioned  my  greatness  with  Honor  and  the 
Plighted  Word. 

In  my  markets  millions  in  gold  pass  back 
and  forth  upon  the  firm  security  of  men's  trust 
in  one  another. 

When  I  give  my  word  I  do  not  falter.  From 
every  corner  of  the  nation  men  have  gone 
forth,  relying  on  the  promise  of  that  word,  to 
stretch  great  railroads  across  the  continent;  to 
open  mines  and  rear  new  cities  on  the  unbroken 
plains. 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  BRAINS    189 

Because  the  war  was  fought  for  Right,  I 
gave  unsparingly  my  sons  and  my  resources. 

And  not  until  the  last  dollar  of  the  cost  of 
Victory  is  paid  shall  I  call  my  task  complete. 

For  I  am  New  York,  the  dwelling  place  of 
honor. 

"A  city  that  hath  foundations"  —  whose 
corner-stone  is  Faith. 

This  business  community,  and  its  counterpart  in 
every  part  of  America,  can  supply  an  important 
proportion  of  liberal  leadership  in  the  future.  The 
public  problems,  predominantly  economic  in  charac 
ter,  are  so  complex,  so  endless  in  their  variety,  that 
the  business  men  of  America  cannot  wait  to  be 
drafted.  They  must  come  forward  to  meet  the 
crisis  of  peace  as  they  came  forward  to  meet  the 
crisis  of  war  —  as  volunteers. 


HUMAN  RESOURCES 

WILLIAM  JAMES,  in  one  of  his  most  popular  ad 
dresses,  published  under  the  title,  The  Energies  of 
Men,  touched  upon  an  interesting  and  significant 
theory  of  education.  He  emphasized  not  formal 
education,  but  the  realization  and  utilization  to  the 
utmost  of  those  human  powers  which  usually  lie 
fallow  even  in  men  and  women  of  thorough  schooling 
and  active  experience  in  the  work  of  the  world. 

Professor  James  suggested  that  the  increasing 
demands  of  modern  affairs  upon  the  strength  and 
attention  of  the  individual  can  in  part  at  least  be 
met  by  a  better  organization  of  the  powers  which 
have  been  given  us.  "Let  no  one  think,  then,"  he 
said,  "that  our  problem  of  individual  and  national 
economy  is  solely  that  of  the  maximum  of  pounds 
raisable  against  gravity,  the  maximum  of  loco 
motion,  or  of  agitation  of  any  sort,  that  human 
beings  can  accomplish.  That  might  signify  little 
more  than  hurrying  and  jumping  about  in  unco 
ordinated  ways;  whereas  inner  work,  though  it  so 
often  reinforces  outer  work,  quite  as  often  means 
its  arrest.  To  relax,  to  say  to  ourselves  (with  the 
'new  thoughters')  'Peace!  be  still!5  is  sometimes  a 
great  achievement  of  inner  work.  When  I  speak  of 

190 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  191 

human  energizing  in  general,  the  reader  must  there 
fore  understand  that  sum-total  of  activities,  some 
outer  and  some  inner,  some  muscular,  some  emo 
tional,  some  moral,  some  spiritual,  of  whose  waxing 
and  waning  in  himself  he  is  at  all  times  so  well  aware. 
How  to  keep  it  at  an  appreciable  maximum?  How 
not  to  let  the  level  lapse  ?  That  is  the  great  problem." 

The  thought,  as  he  develops  it,  is  analogous  to  the 
physical  phenomenon  of  "second  wind."  "Everyone 
knows  what  it  is  to  start  a  piece  of  work,  either 
intellectual  or  muscular,  feeling  stale.  And  every 
body  knows  what  it  is  to  'warm  up'  to  his  job.  .  .  . 
When  we  have  walked,  played,  or  worked  'enough' 
we  desist.  .  .  .  But  if  an  unusual  necessity  forces 
us  to  press  onward,  a  surprising  thing  occurs.  The 
fatigue  gets  worse  up  to  a  certain  critical  point, 
when  gradually  or  suddenly  it  passes  away,  and  we 
are  fresher  than  before.  We  have  evidently  tapped 
a  level  of  new  energy,  masked  until  then  by  a 
fatigue-obstacle  usually  obeyed.  .  .  .  Mental  activity 
shows  the  phenomenon  as  well  as  physical,  and  in 
exceptional  cases  we  may  find,  beyond  the  very 
extremity  of  fatigue-distress,  amounts  of  ease  and 
power  which  we  never  dreamed  ourselves  to  own,  — • 
sources  of  strength  habitually  not  taxed  at  all,  be 
cause  habitually  we  never  push  through  the  ob 
struction,  never  pass  those  early  critical  points." 

The  question  at  once  arises,  "Why  do  so  many 
men  break  down  in  health?"  The  answer  of  James 
is,  in  substance,  that  the  breakdown  is  due  not  to 


192  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

work,  but  rather  to  worry,  which  is  an  abuse  of  the 
mind  and  body,  or  that  it  is  due  to  an  improper 
handling  of  the  physical  machinery  of  men.  "Of 
course  there  are  limits :  the  trees  don't  grow  into  the 
sky.  But  the  plain  fact  remains  that  men  the 
world  over  possess  amounts  of  resource  which  only 
very  exceptional  individuals  push  to  their  extremes 
of  use.  But  the  very  same  individual,  pushing  his 
energies  to  their  extreme,  may  in  a  vast  number  of 
cases  keep  the  pace  up  day  after  day  and  find  no 
*  reaction'  of  a  bad  sort,  so  long  as  decent  hygienic 
conditions  are  preserved.  His  more  active  rate  of 
energizing  does  not  wreck  him;  for  the  organism 
adapts  itself,  and  as  the  rate  of  waste  augments, 
augments  correspondingly  the  rate  of  repair.  ...  If 
my  reader  will  put  together  these  two  conceptions, 
first,  that  few  men  live  at  their  maximum  of  energy, 
and  second,  that  anyone  may  be  in  vital  equilibrium 
at  very  different  rates  of  energizing,  he  will  find,  I 
think,  that  a  very  pretty  practical  problem  of 
national  economy,  as  well  as  of  individual  ethics, 
opens  upon  his  view. 

"In  rough  terms,  we  may  say  that  a  man  who 
energizes  below  his  normal  maximum  fails  by  just 
so  much  to  profit  by  his  chance  at  life;  and  that  a 
nation  filled  with  such  men  is  inferior  to  a  nation 
run  at  higher  pressure.  The  problem  is,  then,  how 
can  men  be  trained  up  to  their  most  useful  pitch  of 
energy?  And  how  can  nations  make  such  training 
most  accessible  to  all  their  sons  and  daughters? 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  193 

This,  after  all,  is  only  the  general  problem  of  educa 
tion,  formulated  in  slightly  different  terms." 

Of  course,  there  will  always  be  the  other  side  of  the 
picture.  The  restless  sons  of  a  pioneer  race  must 
learn  to  supplement  the  quest  for  the  maximum  of 
properly  directed  energy  with  an  occasional  study 
and  practice  of  that  supplementary  science  "the 
idleness  of  men."  It  is  a  more  popular  science  than 
the  other,  and  for  many  people  easier  to  master. 
But  too  many  normally  energetic  men  and  women 
in  America  have  never  learned  how  to  throw  off 
every  thought  and  care  even  for  one  waking  moment 
and  to  give  themselves  up  to  the  luxury  of  complete 
mental  and  physical  idleness.  We  sometimes  need 
a  little  of  the  philosophy  of  the  elderly  resident  of 
a  cross-roads  not  far  from  Springfield,  Illinois,  whom 
Lincoln  is  said  to  have  seen  sitting  whittling  day 
after  day  in  complete  contentment.  On  one  occa 
sion  Lincoln's  curiosity  became  too  much  for  him. 
He  drew  up  his  horse  and  asked  the  old  fellow  what 
he  did  all  day.  "Well,"  was  the  reply,  "sometimes 
I  set  and  whittle,  and  sometimes  I  set  and  think  — 
and  sometimes  I  jes5  set." 

On  the  frontiers  of  earlier  generations  the  neces 
sities  of  existence  kept  a  majority  of  men  and  women 
up  to  the  full  limit  of  their  physical  powers,  at  least. 
Today,  on  the  new  frontier  the  stimuli  which  "carry 
us  over  the  dam"  are  more  frequently  those  of  the 
mind.  The  center  of  gravity  of  national  endeavor 
and  creative  power  has  swung  from  the  wilderness 


194  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

to  the  crowded  city.  According  to  census  figures, 
forty-six  per  cent  of  our  population  lives  in  "urban" 
territory,  that  is,  in  towns  and  incorporated  places 
with  a  population  of  twenty-five  hundred  or  more. 
To  quote  once  more  from  William  James:  "The 
rapid  rate  of  life,  the  number  of  decisions  in  an  hour, 
the  many  things  to  keep  account  of,  in  a  busy  city 
man's  or  woman's  life,  seem  monstrous  to  a  country 
brother.  He  doesn't  see  how  we  live  at  all.  A  day 
in  New  York  or  Chicago  fills  him  with  terror.  The 
danger  and  noise  make  it  appear  like  a  permanent 
earthquake.  But  settle  him  there,  and  in  a  year  or 
two  he  will  have  caught  the  pulse-beat.  He  will 
vibrate  to  the  city's  rhythms;  and  if  he  only  suc 
ceeds  in  his  vocation,  whatever  that  may  be,  he 
will  find  a  joy  in  all  the  hurry  and  the  tension,  he 
will  keep  the  pace  as  well  as  any  of  us,  and  get  as 
much  out  of  himself  in  any  week  as  he  ever  did  in 
ten  weeks  in  the  country." 

This  fascinating  study  of  human  power  is  one  of 
the  most  pertinent  which  can  be  pursued  in  the 
development  of  men  and  women  capable  of  bearing 
the  brunt  of  the  responsibility  for  leadership  in  our 
day.  The  principle  here  set  forth  is  essentially 
simple.  The  application  of  it  must  be  worked  out 
in  the  laboratory  of  the  experience  and  necessity  of 
each  individual.  Everyone  has  examples  at  hand 
to  observe  and  study.  All  of  us  know  men  who  work 
tirelessly,  during  long  hours,  and  yet  seem  to  retain 
their  physical  strength  and  fresh  creative  mental 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  195 

vigor.  All  of  us  are  familiar  with  examples  of  men 
who  push  their  work  beyond  the  utmost  reserve  of 
their  energies,  and  collapse.  Each  man  must  learn 
the  extent  of  his  own  reserves.  But  when  a  man  does 
collapse  we  must  take  care  to  learn  whether  or  not 
he  honestly  over-taxed  his  power  for  work,  or  whether 
instead  he  did  not  abuse  his  physical  strength,  or, 
from  another  angle,  whether  he  did  not  dissipate 
his  energies  on  details  which  he  ought  to  have  passed 
along  to  other  men.  We  shall  rarely  find,  if  we 
examine  each  case  closely,  that  a  man  has  actually 
collapsed  from  too  much  clean,  well-ordered  work. 

The  phase  of  education  which  has  just  been  dis 
cussed  applies  to  the  problem  of  the  active  men  and 
women  of  today  who  seek  to  take  a  fuller  part  in 
the  destinies  of  America.  But  to  a  large  extent  the 
equipment  of  most  mature  people  of  today  is  a 
product  of  the  influences  and  educational  efforts  of 
a  previous  generation.  To  a  large  extent  our  po 
tentialities  are  fixed  beyond  our  power  to  expand 
them  radically.  In  the  longer  view,  therefore,  the 
phase  of  education  most  profitable  to  consider  is 
the  development  of  new  material.  We  are  building, 
we  like  to  believe,  for  eternity.  We  may,  therefore, 
consider  with  no  little  satisfaction  and  hope  that 
the  destiny  of  America  must  soon  be  turned  over  to 
the  leadership  of  men  whose  capacity  for  leadership 
has  just  begun  to  be  demonstrated,  and  who  are 
still  to  a  great  degree  in  a  formative  period.  An 
entirely  new  group  comes  forward  to  do  the  nation's 


196  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

work  in  each  generation,  and  each  successive  group 
enters  the  arena  equipped  with  the  skill  and  strength 
and  inspiration  which  the  system  of  education  their 
fathers  established  for  them  renders  possible.  A 
great  opportunity  for  service  to  America  lies  in 
establishing  the  solidarity  of  these  new  men,  in 
developing  in  them  a  love  of  country  based  on  a 
knowledge  of  the  spirit  and  not  simply  the  letter  of 
our  tradition  and  history;  in  shaping  in  them  a 
determination  to  conduct  themselves  in  all  their 
affairs,  public  and  private,  with  a  view  to  the 
strengthening  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  rather  than 
the  mere  building  up  of  personal  fortunes. 

The  leadership  of  the  future  is  determined  by  the 
education  of  the  present.  Much  is  being  said  about 
education,  particularly  college  education.  The  sub 
ject  has  been  thrown  a  little  out  of  perspective  by 
the  recent  emphasis  upon  higher  education,  while 
the  fact  is  lost  sight  of  that  the  school  system  of  the 
nation,  the  fundamental  basis  of  our  institutions, 
has  not  kept  pace  with  the  needs  of  the  time.  Ele 
mentary  education  is  the  measure  of  the  progress 
of  the  masses  of  people  from  a  state  of  ignorance  to 
a  condition  of  civilization.  A  small  proportion  re 
ceive  the  benefits  of  higher  education;  and  these 
favored  few  are  not  true  to  their  duty  if  they  fail  to 
demonstrate  the  value  of  that  training  and  inspira 
tion  by  working  constantly  to  raise  the  standard  of 
training  and  inspiration  open  to  the  great  majority. 
Professor  Henry  W,  Holmes  of  Harvard  said  re- 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  197 

cently:  "There  are  some  600,000  teachers  in  this 
country.  About  one-half  of  them  are  under  twenty- 
five  years  of  age.  About  half  of  them  serve  less  than 
five  years  in  the  schools  and  then  turn  their  jobs 
over  to  the  inexperienced.  About  half  of  them  had 
less  than  a  high-school  education  themselves.  About 
half  of  them  have  never  had  professional  training 
at  all.  That  is,  there  are  about  16,000,000  children 
in  this  country,  the  future  voters,  that  are  badly 
taught." 

Professor  Holmes's  figure  is  low.  We  have  in 
America  today  approximately  22,171,897  school 
children.  We  cannot  leave  to  desultory  instruction 
their  firm  grounding  in  the  principles  which  have 
made  this  nation  great.  There  are  in  the  country 
about  12,944,529  persons  of  foreign  birth,  of  whom 
2,953,011  are  unable  to  speak  English.  Their  in 
struction  in  the  duties  and  privileges  of  American 
citizenship  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  duties  of  this 
generation.  If  these  two  responsibilities  are  squarely 
met  now,  our  children  will  not  have  to  worry  about 
Bolshevism.  To  meet  this  need  a  positive  and 
specific  body  of  doctrine  must  be  taught.  No  child, 
no  foreigner,  can  be  expected  without  guidance  to 
steer  a  true  course  among  the  reefs  and  shoals  of 
prevalent  un-American  doctrines.  And  there  is 
another  point  of  importance  in  this  connection.  We 
cannot  expect  to  overcome  Bolshevism  or  sub 
versive  radicalism  by  knocking  in  the  head  the 
proponents  of  these  doctrines  and  offering  no  concrete 


198  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

alternative.  Deporting  irreconcilable  Reds  will 
never  rid  the  nation  of  extreme  radicals.  But  a 
large  number  of  them  can  be  won  over  to  Ameri 
canism  if  the  true  American  doctrine  is  set  forth  for 
them  with  definiteness  and  adequacy.  The  average 
budding  radical  is  an  enthusiast.  He  is  a  person 
who  feels  he  has  a  mission  in  the  world,  some  great 
wrong  to  right,  some  far-reaching  injustice  to  correct, 
some  Land  of  Promise  to  win  for  mankind.  Or  he 
may  simply  be  selfishly  seeking  something  for  noth 
ing.  In  any  event  we  cannot  expect  to  destroy  his 
vision,  wrong  as  it  is,  without  giving  him  another 
in  return.  And  it  will  be  an  eternal  shame  if  we 
fail,  with  all  the  wonderful  possibilities  for  enthusiasn 
which  lie  in  the  strong,  clean  traditions  of  America, 
with  the  endless  advantages  of  the  nation  of  today, 
with  the  splendid  promise  of  its  future,  to  set  up  a 
standard  which  will  win  the  unqualified  allegiance 
of  all  true-hearted  men  and  women  who  come  to 
these  shores. 

And  the  best  method  yet  suggested  for  instilling 
something  of  reverence  and  self-reliance  in  the 
younger  men  of  our  day  is  a  system  of  universal 
military  training.  The  story  of  what  the  training 
camps  did  to  make  aliens  into  Americans,  to  make 
physical  defectives  into  vigorous  men,  to  make  the 
mentally  weak  mentally  competent,  to  make  good 
Americans  better  Americans,  is  little  short  of  thrilling. 

We  must  have  leadership,  but  the  task  of  leader 
ship  becomes  impossible  if  no  one  will  follow.  We 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  199 

need  leaders;  but  if  the  mass  of  our  people  are  not 
trained  in  the  ideals  of  the  nation  but  are  left  to 
shift  for  themselves  intellectually,  they  will  rely 
upon  those  leaders  who  promise  them  only  material 
benefits.  Progressive  leadership  depends  upon  the 
existence  of  a  people  whose  moral  sense  can  be 
touched,  who  can  be  aroused  to  follow  other  than 
selfish  purposes,  who  are  willing  to  unite  and  vote 
for  an  ideal  and  if  necessary  to  fight  for  it. 

We  must  raise  the  salaries  of  our  school  teachers. 
We  must  raise  the  salaries  of  our  spiritual  teachers 
—  the  clergymen.  No  better  way  has  yet  been  sug 
gested  to  guard  the  sacred  fire  in  the  temple  and 
to  preserve  the  forces  which  shape  the  patriotism 
of  the  new  generation.  From  a  practical  business 
standpoint  it  seems  hardly  necessary  to  prove  that 
the  present  supply  of  material  is  inadequate.  Dur 
ing  the  year  1919  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the 
State  of  New  York  received  a  gift  of  $200,000  from 
a  banker,  the  purpose  of  the  fund  being  to  develop 
efficient  young  men  for  clerical  work.  This  banker, 
after  a  generation  of  contact  with  American  business 
and  public  life,  has  drawn  the  conclusion  that  the 
supply  of  human  material  is  not  equal  in  volume 
and  quality  to  the  demand.  Consider  the  whole 
fabric  of  American  business  life.  There  is  surely 
room  for  better  business  training  in  a  country  where, 
according  to  Dun's  figures,  in  the  thirty  years  from 
1889  to  1918  inclusive,  the  number  of  firms  in  busi 
ness  increased  from  1,051,000  to  1,708,000,  a  total 


200  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

increase  of  657,000,  while  during  the  same  period 
the  number  of  failures  aggregated  395,740,  or  sixty 
per  cent.  It  is  evident  that  the  average  business 
man  is  carrying  a  load  too  great  for  his  strength  and 
highest  efficiency.  We  are  not  correct  in  thinking 
that  we  can  show  the  way  to  the  world  in  every 
direction,  and  possibly  we  have  often  given  ourselves 
credit  for  business  ability  in  cases  where  the  size 
of  our  continent  and  the  extent  of  our  natural  re 
sources  have  been  largely  responsible  for  the  results 
achieved. 

The  time  is  at  hand  when  greater  thoroughness 
must  be  combined  with  our  imagination  and  dash. 
It  is  increasingly  evident,  now  that  we  have  come 
more  closely  in  contact  with  foreign  nations,  that 
while  we  have  been  developing  our  natural  resources 
and  unusual  business  opportunities,  they  have  de 
veloped  standards  of  education  and  training  which 
are  going  to  be  difficult  for  us  to  equal.  In  England, 
for  example,  with  the  crowded  population  and  keen 
competition  of  their  little  island,  the  profession  of 
actuary  has  long  been  considered  a  worthy  object 
of  high  endeavor  on  the  part  of  university  men.  In 
an  examination  recently  held  by  a  large  American 
insurance  company  for  the  position  of  assistant 
actuary,  seventeen  out  of  twenty  candidates  who 
presented  themselves  were  of  Scotch  or  of  English 
origin,  the  rest  being  Americans.  It  is  true  that  one 
of  the  Americans  was  the  successful  candidate;  but 
it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  supply  of  Americans  who 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  201 

can  compete  with  the  trained  actuary  from  across 
the  water  is  very  small. 

Mr.  Vanderlip,  in  his  discussion  of  what  happened 
to  Europe,  answers  in  the  affirmative  the  question 
as  to  whether  or  not  New  York  is  to  become  the 
financial  center  of  the  world;  but  in  discussing  this 
question  he  points  out  "that  London  bankers  doubt 
our  ability  to  create  the  technical  organization  that 
will  be  necessary,  if  we  are  to  try  to  assume  the 
responsibility  of  world  financial  leadership.  They 
recognize  frankly  their  present  disabilities,  but  they 
think  the  safety  of  their  position  lies  largely  in  our 
inability  to  create  a  competent  technical  group  of 
international  bankers." 

Another  important  consideration  in  our  business 
world  today  is  the  handling  of  young  men  after 
they  have  actually  entered  the  various  organizations. 
College  men,  contrary  to  the  popular  impression, 
are  willing  to  put  on  overalls  or  sit  on  a  bench  and 
answer  a  bell.  They  are  ready  to  start  doing  this, 
but  naturally  they  are  not  willing  to  keep  on  doing 
it  after  they  see  there  is  nothing  ahead.  If  we 
spend  a  great  deal  of  money  in  building  up  institu 
tions  to  give  a  group  o  picked  men  a  special  training 
we  ought  in  our  business  organizations  to  be  willing 
to  build  up  an  adequate  system  to  use  these  men  up 
to  the  limit  of  their  possibilities  of  economic  pro 
ductiveness. 

This  point  does  not  apply  solely  to  college  men. 
We  have  not  as  yet  reached  an  ideal  solution  of  the 


202  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

whole  problem  of  vocational  selection,  of  making 
the  man  and  the  job  fit  each  other  and  go  forward 
together.  Our  employment  divisions  have  until 
recently  been  equipped  with  men  who  were  inclined 
to  measure  the  head  and  tabulate  the  reactions  to 
mental  tests  of  the  "subject/'  rather  than  looking 
the  man  in  the  eye  and  sensing  his  true  potentialities. 
Employment  directors  have  been  under  the  necessity 
of  establishing  a  system  which  would  enable  them 
to  respond  instantly  to  the  voice  over  the  telephone: 
''Send  me  a  file  clerk  —  quick."  The  employment 
director  who  will  search  out  sources  of  supply  and 
see  that  men  were  properly  handled  and  developed 
according  to  their  maximum  abilities  after  they  enter 
our  business  organizations  will  discharge  one  of  the 
heaviest  responsibilities  in  our  present  economic 
system. 

Of  course,  the  bulk  of  the  employes  who  go  into 
our  business  and  industrial  world  today  are  hardly 
more  than  boys  and  girls.  Where  do  they  come  from, 
and  who  is  responsible  for  their  equipment  when 
they  start  out  to  look  for  a  job  in  the  world?  Do 
they  come  properly  equipped?  At  the  present  time 
the  answer  to  these  questions  must  be  that  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  they  come  from  schools 
which  are  conducted  by  a  devoted  group,  largely 
made  up  of  women  who  are  not  properly  paid  and 
from  colleges  whose  teachers  receive  scandalously 
low  salaries.  A  leading  educator  recently  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  in  these  days  of  universal 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  203 

strikes  it  is  remarkable  that  the  teachers,  who  cer 
tainly  deserve  salary  increases  far  more  than  many 
of  the  present-day  strikers,  have  not  long  since  put 
down  their  rulers  and  pencils  and  refused  to  continue 
until  their  salaries  were  raised.  The  explanation 
seems  to  be  that  the  same  spirit  which  induced  them 
in  the  first  place  to  undertake  a  line  of  work  in  which 
the  personal  satisfaction  in  the  service  rendered  is 
its  greatest  reward,  has  kept  them  at  their  desks. 
The  devotion  of  this  great  body  of  men  and  women  is 
beyond  praise,  and  it  is  an  immediate  and  urgent 
responsibility  of  liberal  leadership  the  country  over 
to  see  to  it  that  the  defect  of  inadequate  compensa 
tion  is  remedied  so  that  the  children  in  our  schools 
shall  not  be  placed  in  the  position  of  gaining  their 
fundamental  education  in  an  atmosphere  of  strikes 
and  lock-outs,  or  at  best  of  petty  politics. 

Tardily  but  effectively  the  colleges  are  endeavoring 
to  raise  enough  money  to  give  their  professors  a 
living  wage.  Men  and  women  have  gone  through 
our  colleges  and  universities  for  some  hundreds  of 
years  receiving  a  training  \vhich  has  actually  cost 
in  dollars  spent  on  the  individual  student  much  more 
than  the  student  has  paid  in  tuition.  The  graduates 
have  gone  cheerfully  on  their  way  taking  deep  satis 
faction  in  their  Alma  Mater,  and  meanwhile  the  Alma 
Mater  has  come  very  near  starving  to  death.  We 
may  well  be  proud  of  the  colleges  which  turned  out 
such  an  extraordinary  proportion  of  the  officers  of 
the  Ajnerican  army  in  France,  and  yet  we  have  been 


204  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

content  to  let  our  college  professors  train  successive 
generations  of  young  men,  and  receive  salaries  which 
have  not  made  it  possible  for  the  professors  to  send 
their  own  sons  through  college.  Following  the 
leadership  of  Harvard,  the  campaigns  of  Cornell, 
Princeton,  Technology,  Smith,  Bryn  Mawr,  Welles- 
ley  and  other  colleges  should  mark  a  new  era  and 
initiate  a  movement  calculated  forever  to  put  an 
end  to  a  flagrant  form  of  neglect  which  has  been  at 
tacking  the  very  roots  of  our  national  greatness  by 
endangering  the  supply  of  trained  leadership  in  the 
Republic.  Our  next  duty  is  to  see  to  it  that  the 
same  service  is  rendered  the  teachers  in  our  public 
schools. 

One  detail  of  the  wide  program  for  the  improve 
ment  of  our  human  material  involves  more  personal 
contact  with  schools  on  the  part  of  grown-ups.  Men 
and  women  of  vision  and  training  can  render  great 
service  if  they  will  systematically  go  into  the  schools 
and  talk  to  children.  One  of  the  most  helpful  plans 
under  consideration  has  been  developed  by  a  New 
York  business  man  who  suggests  the  formation  of 
representative  committees  throughout  the  United 
States  with  the  official  sanction  of  the  state,  city 
and  town  authorities,  each  man  or  woman  to  make 
two  or  three  short,  carefully  prepared  talks  each 
year  in  schoolrooms  of  the  vicinity. 

Men  forget  how  susceptible  children  are  to  ideas 
acquired  in  such  a  way.  It  is  the  finest  sort  of  public 
service,  because  it  touches  the  foundations  of  charac- 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  205 

ter  which  are  the  ultimate  basis  of  the  greatness  of 
the  nation.  In  the  words  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
in  his  essay  on  politics,  "We  think  our  civilization 
near  its  meridian,  but  we  are  yet  only  at  the  cock- 
crowing  and  the  morning  star.  In  our  barbarous 
society  the  influence  of  character  is  in  its  infancy. 
As  a  political  power,  as  the  rightful  lord  who  is  to 
tumble  all  rulers  from  their  chairs,  its  presence  is 
hardly  yet  suspected.  .  .  .  What  is  strange,  too, 
there  never  was  in  any  man  sufficient  faith  in  the 
power  of  rectitude  to  inspire  him  with  the  broad 
design  of  renovating  the  State  on  the  principle  of 
right  and  love,  .  .  .  that  human  beings  might 
exercise  toward  each  other  the  grandest  and  simplest 
sentiments,  as  well  as  a  knot  of  friends  or  a  pair  of 
lovers." 

An  ideal  of  this  kind,  if  it  can  be  established  at  all, 
must  be  deeply  ingrained  in  the  youth  of  the  land 
if  it  is  to  withstand  the  wear  and  tear  of  a  practical 
world.  , 

As  to  the  matter  of1  college  training,  it  is  idle  to 
question  its  value  to  the  individual  or  to  the  nation. 
The  perennial  discussion  of  the  college  man  in 
business  would  have  some  basis  if  the  claim  had 
been  advanced  that  all  college  men  were  better 
trained  than  all  non-college  men.  This  is  not  true. 
Many  men  are  born  with  natural  capacity  and 
ambition  which  surmounts  all  obstacles.  The  right 
man  will  succeed  wherever  he  is.  It  may  even 
be  said  that  a  certain  type  of  restless  energy  is 


206  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

rarely  helped  by  college  because  it  never  truly 
submits  itself  to  the  college  influences.  In  general, 
however,  it  is  probably  true  that  most  successful 
men  who  are  not  college  graduates  would  have  found 
their  true  success  more  easily  and  more  fully  if  they 
had  had  the  benefit  of  college  training.  And,  in 
general,  college  men  entering  business  today  are 
proving  by  their  willingness  to  begin  at  the  bottom, 
their  evident  ambition,  their  adaptability  and  good 
presence  that  their  investment  of  money  and  of 
precious  years  in  college  work  has  not  been  thrown 
away. 

The  opportunities  for  college-trained  men  in  the 
business  and  public  life  of  the  future  are  endless. 
But  we  must  regard  the  college  man  for  what  he  is. 
The  graduate  of  a  business  college  is  not  a  business 
man.  Neither  is  the  graduate  of  a  law  school  a 
lawyer,  or  the  graduate  of  a  medical  school  a  doctor. 
All  these  men  have  learned  to  think  with  a  certain 
thoroughness  and  have  established  their  habits  of 
thought  on  a  basis  of  organization  rather  than  upon 
pure  superficiality  and  chance.  But  all  these  men 
must  learn  their  actual  work  by  doing  it.  From  a 
practical  standpoint  their  claim  upon  the  community 
lies  not  in  what  they  know  but  in  their  determination 
to  learn  quickly  coupled  with  a  capacity  to  do  so. 
Beyond  this,  too,  the  majority  of  these  men  have 
acquired  a  breadth  of  viewpoint,  a  liberality,  one 
may  say,  which  comes  from  a  liberal  education. 
They  have,  as  a  rule,  a  certain  capacity  for  meeting 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  207 

new  situations  and  for  exerting  initiative  which 
makes  rapidly  for  winning  the  confidence  of  their 
superiors  and  their  associates.  This  is  the  natural 
basis  for  success,  and  for  leadership. 

These  results  of  college  training  bear  more  upon 
method  of  approach  and  indeed  upon  character  than 
upon  technique;  and  it  is  this  viewpoint  which  needs 
to  be  appreciated  in  order  to  comprehend  the  value 
and  the  limitations  of  the  young  graduate  entering 
his  life  work.  He  knows  very  little.  If  he  is  the 
right  sort  of  man  he  quickly  discovers  how  little  he 
knows  —  and  right  here  enters  the  true  secret  of 
his  success;  for  the  discovery  of  his  limitations  does 
not  break  his  spirit.  He  has  wandered  through 
realms  of  high  aspiration;  his  college  life  has  given 
him  a  glimpse  of  the  great  hopes  and  achievements 
of  men,  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  of  art  and 
literature  and  the  great  permanent,  basic  elements 
of  human  happiness.  His  flag  is  nailed  to  the  mast. 
No  matter  how  far  short  he  may  fall  of  his  highest 
ambition  he  will  rarely  let  himself  fall  short  of  the 
best  that  there  is  in  him.  More  than  this  no  man 
can  do. 

All  this  constitutes  a  form  of  idealism,  a  setting 
up  of  standards,  and  a  loyalty  to  those  standards. 
Loyalty  is  the  essence  of  it.  It  is  not  simply  a 
college  product.  Lincoln  acquired  it  in  a  log  cabin 
and  a  law  office.  But  it  is  the  highest  object  of 
education,  and  the  university  is  the  highest  form  of 
systematic  training  human  ingenuity  has  so  far 


208  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

been  able  to  devise.  College-trained  men  and  women 
are  entering  into  the  hard  work  of  the  nation  to  an 
extent  which  should  leave  no  question  as  to  the  im 
portance  of  making  that  training  increasingly  easy 
of  access  to  the  young  men  and  women  of  the  coun 
try,  irrespective  of  any  consideration  except  their 
ambition  and  the  possession  of  reasonable  qualifica 
tion  to  undertake  it. 

There  is  another  and  a  still  broader  aspect  to 
college  education.  Aside  from  turning  out  keen  and 
intelligent  workers,  the  greatest  value  to  be  expected 
from  the  higher  education  is  the  responsibility  it 
teaches  for  leadership  in  national  affairs,  politics, 
social  service,  and  the  formation  of  public  opinion. 
Most  business  men  without  college  training  can,  if 
they  will,  do  constructive  work  along  the  lines  of 
public  service.  But  the  college  man  cannot  omit 
such  service  without  being  false  to  a  trust.  It  is 
expected  of  him.  He  is  supposed  to  be  equipped  for 
it.  Others  consciously,  and  to  some  extent  properly, 
leave  it  to  him  to  do. 

President  Lowell,  in  a  recent  address  in  connection 
with  the  Harvard  Endowment  Fund  campaign, 
called  attention  to  the  tremendous  loss  of  university 
men  in  the  war.  Some  of  the  colleges  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  had  entire  classes  wiped  out. 
He  said  that  this  great  tragedy  placed  a  responsi 
bility  upon  the  college-trained  men  of  America.  "I 
remember  early  in  this  war,  while  horrors  were  still 
fresh  in  our  minds,  and  before  the  martial  desire 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  209 

had  to  some  extent  replaced  the  sense  of  pure  sym 
pathy,  that  I  used  to  think  of  the  battlefields  on  the 
Marne,  in  Flanders,  of  the  faces  turned  up  to  the 
moon  with  sightless  eyes,  of  thousands  and  thou 
sands  of  young  men,  and  wonder  who  was  dead 
among  those  young  men;  whether  there  was  among 
them  any  man  who  would  have  been  a  future  Pasteur, 
any  mute,  inglorious  Milton,  any  man  who  would 
have  contributed  greatly  to  the  advance  of  human 
knowledge  and  the  relief  of  human  suffering,  to  the 
elevation  of  the  human  soul.  We  do  not  know  what 
the  future  might  have  held  for  those  who  lie  dead 
on  those  fields,  but  we  do  know  that  among  those 
young  men  who  have  died,  among  the  French  and 
among  the  English,  —  who  have  lost  vastly  more 
men  than  we  have,  —  are  many  who  would  have 
contributed  greatly  to  the  advance  of  the  human 
race,  and  to  the  progress  of  civilization.  We  know 
very  well  that  a  large  portion  of  the  most  promising 
youth  of  Western  Europe  has  been  destroyed,  cut 
off  in  their  prime,  and  we  know  that  many  more 
have  been  incapacitated  for  future  work  by  the  loss 
of  their  eyes  or  loss  of  their  limbs  and  the  consequent 
loss  of  their  health,  which  will  prevent  them  ever 
exerting  the  natural  powers  that  they  would  other 
wise  have  had. 

"And,  it  seems  to  me,  it  has  thrown  a  responsi 
bility  on  the  United  States.  We  stand  out  today 
not  only  as  the  first  nation  in  wealth,  the  first  nation 
in  the  great  natural  material  resources,  but  we  also 


210  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

i  X 

stand  as  the  standard  bearer  of  civilization.  The 
world  looks  to  us,  and  will  continue  to  look  to  us 
for  holding  up  civilization  and  for  advancing  it. 
Hitherto  we  have  not  contributed  our  share  to  the 
advancement  of  thought  of  the  world,  and  for  a  very 
good  reason  we  have  not  done  it.  We  have  accom 
plished  a  feat  unparalleled  in  history.  In  the  course 
of  a  hundred  years  we  have  subdued  a  whole 
continent,  a  continent  inhabited  only  by  people  un 
civilized.  We  have  covered  the  whole  of  that  conti 
nent  with  a  network  of  railroads;  we  have  exploited 
its  mines,  we  have  covered  it  with  flourishing  towns; 
we  have  filled  it  with  the  hum  of  industry;  and  that 
is  enough  for  any  population  to  have  done  in  a 
hundred  years.  But  we  have  not  contributed  to 
advance  the  thought  of  the  world,  to  the  extent  that 
we  ought  to  contribute  in  the  future. 

"There  were  two  nations  of  antiquity  which  I 
like  to  compare.  Each  of  them  in  its  turn  had  all 
the  commerce  of  the  Mediterranean  in  its  hand; 
they  were  great,  rich  commercial  people.  One  of 
them  fell  under  the  stroke  of  Rome,  to  wit,  Carthage. 
And  wrhat  has  Carthage  left,  except  the  Roman 
accounts  of  her  brave  and  in  many  cases  glorious 
battles?  But  what  else  has  she  left  to  enrich  man 
kind?  Has  she  left  any  literature,  any  science,  any 
thing  which  tended  to  the  uplifting  and  the  progress 
of  the  world?  Nothing  whatever.  It  is  gone.  Why? 
Because  Rome  destroyed  her?  Oh,  no;  if  she  had 
done  anything  that  was  really  worth  doing  in  the 


HUMAN  RESOURCES  211 

world,  except  amassing  trade,  we  should  have 
known  it;  because  the  other  country  was  equally 
overwhelmed  by  Rome,  and  that  was  Athens,  and 
yet  Athens  has  left  a  richer  legacy  to  the  world  than 
any  other  people  of  her  size  has  ever  left  since  the 
world  began.  Rome  conquered  her,  but  her  civiliza 
tion  conquered  Rome.  No  one  of  us  can  think  apart 
from  the  thoughts  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  We  would 
never  have  had  the  literature,  the  art,  and  all  the 
things  that  adorn  modern  civilization,  had  it  not 
been  for  Greece. 

"Now  the  choice  is  before  us  today;  shall  we  be 
merely  a  commercial  people  ?  Shall  we  be  merely  the 
Carthage  of  the  modern  age?  Or  do  we  aspire  to 
be  a  Greece  of  the  modern  age?  It  lies  with  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  They  can  decide  at 
any  time.  We  have  plenty  of  brains  in  America; 
we  have,  I  believe,  brains  equal  in  natural  capacity 
to  those  of  any  country  in  Europe.  Shall  we  be  a 
great  people  in  the  sense  in  which  Athens  was  a 
great  people?  Or,  shall  we  be  a  great  people  only 
in  the  sense  in  which  Carthage  was  a  great  people?" 

The  ideas  and  influences  which  are  stirring  the 
peoples  of  the  world  as  the  result  of  the  war  indicate 
a  turning  point  in  history.  There  never  was  so  wide 
an  opportunity  for  men  of  training  and  vision, 
whether  or  not  they  get  their  training  and  vision  in 
college  or  out  of  college.  The  answer  to  the  momen 
tous  question  which  Dr.  Lowell  asks  regarding  the 
future  of  America  rests  to  a  large  extent  with  the 


212  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

young  men  and  women  who  are  about  to  take  up 
their  burden  of  running  the  greatest  republic  in 
the  world,  and  with  the  millions  of  children  in  our 
public  schools  who  are  now  learning  the  first  simple 
elements  of  the  great  lesson  of  responsible  citizenship. 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH 

MR.  POMEROY  BURTON,  Manager  of  the  London 
Daily  Mail,  recently  spent  some  time  in  this  coun 
try,  and  left  with  us  some  impressions  of  his  visit 
to  the  Coast  and  back. 

"I  was  particularly  impressed,"  he  says,  "with 
the  general  lack  of  interest  in  other  than  local  affairs 
on  the  part  of  many  business  men  who  represented 
leading  commercial  and  financial  activities.  In  some 
sections  I  found  them  inclined  to  take  the  present 
exceptional  state  of  prosperity  as  a  normal  state  of 
affairs  and  they  were  therefore  in  a  thoroughly  com 
placent  frame  of  mind,  not  bothering  their  heads 
much  about  labor  or  European  affairs  or  anything 
else  except  their  own  business. 

"But  it  is  fair  to  say  that  this  attitude  was  not 
without  exception.  This  policy  has  provided  the 
extremist  leaders  who  are  now  in  control  of  the 
labor  situation  with  their  strongest  weapon,  and  that 
weapon  has  been  used  unsparingly  to  force  into  the 
radical  camp  many  thousands  of  straight  working 
men  who  have  no  real  sympathy  with  their  present 
leaders  and  who  would  welcome  a  change  to  get  on 
the  right  track. 

"False  leaders  and  unsound  theories  are  prevailing 
partly  by  sheer  force  of  persistence,  and  because  of 

213 


214  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

lack  of  leadership  on  the  side  of  common  sense  and 
justice. 

"Today,  by  means  of  systematic  organization  and 
ceaseless  activity  the  radical  labor  leaders  are  making 
headway  in  the  western  states,  sweeping  into  line 
great  numbers  of  wage  earners,  many  of  them  prop 
erty  owners  themselves,  who  would  welcome  a 
sounder,  saner  program  if  only  one  were  provided. 

"It  seems  to  be  time  for  a  strong  lead  to  be  given 
which  will  encourage  the  people,  especially  the  work 
ing  people  who  are  being  led  sadly  astray,  to  think 
straight  and  understand  the  basic  element  of  the 
labor  question  and  of  other  questions  equally  im 
portant,  which  must  be  dealt  with  in  the  interest  of 
the  country  at  large. 

"It  devolves  upon  the  aroused  business  men  of 
this  country  more  than  upon  any  other  class  or 
body  of  citizens  to  get  properly  to  work  and  save  the 
situation.  It  will  not  do  for  capital,  as  capital,  to 
raise  a  big  fund  and  start  out  to  fight  this  radical 
movement.  If  it  tried  that  today,  the  chances  are 
that  capital  would  be  beaten.  The  extremist 
leaders  would  welcome  such  a  challenge. 

"But  if  the  men  who  represent  all  grades  and 
kinds  of  business  throughout  every  part  of  the 
United  States  were  to  unite  in  a  movement,  not  to 
fight  labor,  not  to  fight  capital,  but  fearlessly  to 
expose  the  faults  of  both  and  simply  and  fairly  to 
spread  the  truth  they  could  turn  the  whole  trend 
of  events  and  avert  consequences  that  are  not 
pleasant  to  contemplate." 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  215 

Here  we  have  a  significant  situation  fairly  stated 
and  a  remedy  suggested.  It  is  a  line  of  action  which 
the  plaintiffs  in  the  present  situation  have  not 
failed  to  take  advantage  of  at  every  turn.  From 
the  standpoint  of  propaganda,  the  radical  agitators 
are  the  most  active  and  prolific  single  element  in 
the  modern  forum.  A  soldier  in  France  who  had 
been  a  teamster  and  whom  the  war  inspired  to  give 
some  thought  to  the  question  of  social  unrest,  has 
made  the  following  comment  on  extremist  literature: 
"The  average  worker  is  a  newspaper  reader  and  the 
more  advanced  and  influential  amongst  them  are 
readers  of  all  sorts  of  pamphlets  and  books  on 
labor  questions.  The  propagandists  of  Bolshevism, 
Syndicalism,  and  all  the  other  -isms  know  well  this 
keenness  of  the  thinking  class  of  workers  for  litera 
ture  of  all  sorts  on  labor  and  social  questions  and 
they  take  good  care  that  such  seekers  after  knowl 
edge  are  well  provided  with  cleverly-written  matter 
supporting  all  the  -isms  fostering  class  hatred  and 
stirring  up  trouble.  The  volume  of  such  literature 
is  too  great  to  be  the  outcome  of  chance;  the  skill 
with  which  it  is  written,  the  subtlety  and  clever 
ness  with  which  fractions  of  what  the  workers 
know  to  be  truths  are  distorted,  magnified,  and  built 
up  into  plausible  arguments  and  reasoning  show 
clearly  that  brains  and  organization  are  at  the 
back  of  this  'revolutionary'  movement.  And  yet 
no  serious  attempt  is  made  to  stem  the  torrent  of 
this  evil  influence;  no  really  effective  measures  are 


216  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

taken  to  expose  the  lies,  fallacies,  false  arguments 
and  reasonings  which  are  heaped  upon  the  workers. 
For  this  the  blame  can  rest  only  on  the  employers. 
There  are,  we  know,  certain  sane  and  level-headed 
labor  leaders  who,  by  articles,  by  speeches  at  their 
meetings  and  conferences  try  to  tell  the  workers 
the  truth.  But  these  men  can  do  little  on  their 
own;  and  the  revolutionary  element  in  the  unions 
takes  good  care  that  the  truth-telling,  anti-revo- 
tutionary  leaders  are  allowed  no  time  nor  money 
to  spend  on  counteracting  the  propaganda  of  the 
-isms.  You  can  find  plenty  of  great  *  captains  of 
industry,'  leaders  of  trade,  large  manufacturers 
and  employers  of  labor,  who  know  well  and  curse 
heartily  the  evil  propaganda,  who  grumble  that 
something  ought  to  be  done,  and  wonder  why  the 
Government  or  the  trade  unions  do  not  do  it;  but 
there  are  few  who  dream  of  doing  it  themselves. 
The  revolutionaries  can  and  do  spend  skill,  energy, 
initiative  and  money  on  propaganda  —  why  can 
not  the  anti-revolutionaries?  They  would  begin 
with  the  enormous  advantage  of  needing  only  to 
tell  the  truth,  and  the  truth  must  win  if  it  is  told 
widely  and  plainly  enough." 

Propaganda  is  needed,  if  by  propaganda  is  meant 
the  telling  of  the  truth.  The  real  crux  of  the  matter 
is  here.  The  facts  are  needed,  patience  is  called 
for,  an  attitude  of  mind  and  heart  is  demanded, 
which  aims  at  agreement  and  not  at  war;  if  these 
things  are  the  material  for  the  propaganda  to 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  217 

convey,  then,  within  limits  it  will  be  useful.  We 
need  a  union  of  persons  who  are  trained  and  elo 
quent  advocates  of  the  truth,  not  for  any  personal 
gain,  except  as  it  may  accrue  to  the  benefit  to  the 
nation  as  a  whole.  And  this  organization  must 
use  the  weapons  of  publicity  to  win  credence  for 
the  doctrines  of  liberal  people  just  as  persistently 
and  skillfully  as  these  weapons  are  being  used  by 
the  proponents  of  lightning  change  in  the  fabric 
of  our  institutions. 

Let  us  analyze  a  little  this  great  modern  publicity 
machinery.  Whether  in  the  form  of  paid  adver 
tising  or  in  the  form  of  news  serving  specific 
ends,  it  is  essential  to  life  as  it  is  lived  in  civil 
ized  countries  today.  It  has  been  defined  as  the  art 
of  making  known.  Whether  we  think  of  America 
primarily  in  its  political  or  social  phase,  or  whether 
we  think  of  it  in  its  business  phase  and  emphasize 
its  tremendous  activities  of  production  and  distribu 
tion,  the  art  of  making  known  is  equally  essential. 

In  a  democracy,  unless  it  is  known  what  people 
think  about  one  another,  what  opinions  and  ac 
tivities  exist  throughout  the  country,  society  can 
not  function  as  a  coherent  whole.  In  the  diversity 
of  our  national  life,  with  its  widely  separated  com 
munities  and  local  conditions  and  interests,  dif 
fering  so  greatly  in  atmosphere  and  the  flavor  of 
tradition,  with  geographic  barriers  of  mountain 
and  prairie,  and  human  barriers  of  fused  and  un- 
fused  racial  elements,  the  disintegrating  influences  in 


2i8  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  way  of  a  unified  American  nation  would  be  in 
superable  were  it  not  for  the  binding  effect  of  the 
publicity  that  daily  places  in  the  minds  of  all  the 
people  of  the  country  the  same  major  ideas  and 
events.  Although  each  community  is  vitally  con 
cerned  with  its  local  interests,  it  is  national  news 
that  dominates  the  best  thought  in  all  communities, 
and  simultaneously  puts  before  them  the  same  set 
of  facts  as  the  basis  for  a  national  viewpoint  and 
judgment.  This  circumstance  is  the  greatest  single 
influence  in  the  formation  of  the  definitely  national 
culture  and  national  attitude  of  mind,  which  are 
the  fundamentals  of  patriotism. 

This  is  true  not  only  of  the  political  questions  of 
the  hour,  but  also  of  a  great  many  social  and  eco 
nomic  questions.  Papers  from  all  sections  of  the 
country  at  any  given  period  are  largely  pervaded 
by  the  same  tone,  because  methods  of  publicity, 
of  making  known  particular  phases  of  thought  or 
of  activity,  have  developed  ways  of  diffusing  knowl 
edge  on  any  particular  subject  throughout  the  ex 
tensive  news  system  of  the  nation.  One  day  it  is 
prohibition  that  leads  the  publicity  thought  of  the 
country;  another  day  it  is  the  ownership  of  the 
nation's  railway  system;  another  day  political 
questions  predominate.  One  week  radical  agita 
tion  holds  sway,  and  the  next  the  League  of  Nations 
is  foremost  in  the  nation's  reading.  All  of  this  is 
publicity,  whether  it  be  produced  through  speeches 
at  public  gatherings,  through  widespread  per- 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  219 

sonal  organization,  or  through  statements  sent 
broadcast  to  the  press.  All  are  methods  of  laying 
before  the  plebescite  of  the  nation  facts  and  figures 
which  will  first  stir  them  to  an  interest  in  a  subject 
and  then  lead  them  to  reach  a  decision.  It  is  the 
right  arm  of  democracy. 

This  delicate  and  powerful  machinery  seems  to  be 
almost  perfect.  And  yet  the  responsibilities  in 
volved  are  so  great  that  it  may  confidently  be  stated 
that  we  have  only  begun  to  realize  them.  One 
forward  step,  foreshadowed  by  the  great  news 
services,  may  well  be  a  greater  concentration  of  in 
dividual  news  units.  In  France  there  are  four 
great  newspapers  with  a  combined  circulation  of 
7,600,000.  The  ten  papers  in  the  United  States  with 
the  largest  sworn  circulation  in  November,  1919, 
were  the  following:  (in  this  order)  New  York 
Journal,  Boston  Post,  Philadelphia  Bulletin,  Kansas 
City  Star  and  Times,  Chicago  Tribune,  Chicago 
News,  New  York  (Morning)  World,  New  York 
Times,  New  York  (Evening)  World  and  New  York 
American,  with  a  total  circulation  of  4,099,712. 
There  are  in  the  country  as  a  whole  21,493  publica 
tions,  including  2363  dailies,  14,714  weeklies,  3148 
monthlies,  342  quarterlies,  and  926  miscellaneous. 
Despite  the  vast  geographical  extent  of  the  country, 
it  would  not  seem  unreasonable  to  expect,  with  the 
wonderful  extension  of  telegraph  and  cable  facili 
ties,  a  further  increase  in  uniformity  and  vigor  in 
the  presentation  of  news  and  opinion,  and  a  con- 


220  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

stantly  increasing  circulation  for  great  and  ably 
edited  journals. 

Good  advertising  often  has  news  value.  But 
generally  speaking,  advertising  is  that  phase  of 
publicity  which  seeks  to  make  known  not  news, 
but  an  accurate  and  vivid  set  of  facts  or  opinions, 
and  to  induce  definite  action  as  a  result.  Our 
present  industrial  and  business  organization  in 
volves  keen  competition  and  narrow  margins  of 
profit.  To  make  business  pay  requires  an  extensive 
market  with  a  large  consumption  to  absorb  the 
output  of  quantity-production  methods.  Only  by 
quantity-production  and  a  wide  scale  of  distribu 
tion  can  a  narrow  margin  of  profit  be  made  to 
produce  sufficient  return  to  attract  capital.  There 
fore,  to  produce  a  large  volume  of  sales,  the  art  of 
making  known  to  America's  hundred  million  people 
scattered  over  the  three  million  square  miles  of 
territory  in  this  vast  country,  is  essential  to  busi 
ness;  and  the  value  and  virtues  of  a  product  must 
be  exploited  with  the  utmost  skill  and  persistency. 
Organization,  expansion  and  big  units  characterize 
the  genius  of  American  business  today  and  explain 
the  necessity  and  the  responsibility  of  the  great 
advertising  organization  of  the  United  States. 

Few  people  realize  the  magnitude  and  importance 
of  the  business  of  advertising.  It  is  estimated  that 
$750,000,000*  is  spent  in  the  United  States  annually 

*  Printer's  Ink,  September  19,  1918:  —  The  periodical  Publishers' 
Association,  through  John  Adams  Thayer,  reports  as  follows  on  expen- 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  221 

for  advertising  of  all  kinds.  In  some  cases  it  is 
hard  to  segregate  the  amounts  spent  in  advertis 
ing  as  distinguished  from  sales  promotion  and 
actual  distribution  through  salesmen,  but  the  figure 
quoted  is  sufficiently  accurate  to  suggest  the  enorm 
ous  investment  in  America  today  in  this  one  branch 
of  the  art  of  putting  power  behind  facts. 

During  the  war  the  power  of  advertising  was 
clearly  demonstrated,  and  the  wonderfully  versatile 
advertising  men  of  the  nation  came  together  as  a 
unit  to  put  at  the  services  of  the  Liberty  Loan  and 
other  war  committees  their  vision  and  skill  in  arous 
ing  public  support  and  the  desire  to  buy.  This 

ditures  for  1916  stating  that  "1917  would  not  be  different  from  the 
previous  year": 

Daily  newspapers $375,000,000 

Country  newspapers 34,000,000 

Posted  and  painted  signs 30,000,000 

Street  cars 10,000,000 

Farm  papers 15,000,000 

Business  papers 10,000,000 

Magazines  and  periodicals 50,000,000 

$524,000,000 

To  this  Mr.  Thayer  would  add  in  round  numbers,  which  are,  of  course, 
approximate,  $200,000,000  a  year  for  miscellaneous  other  forms  of 
advertising,  making  a  grand  total  of  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  billion 
dollars  —  missing  that  figure  by  only  $26,000,000;  and  what  are  twenty- 
six  million  dollars  between  friends  when  we  are  being  statistical? 

Mr.  Thayer's  list  does  not  include  theater  programs,  for  which  the 
figure  of  $5,000,000  is  given  by  Ralph  Trier,  of  the  New  York  Theater 
Program  Corporation,  as  being  as  close  as  could  be  expected  to  the  real 
amount.  To  the  estimate  of  $15,000,000  for  farm  papers,  an  authority 
in  that  field  adds  $7,000,000,  making  $22,000,000  all  told.  The  con 
census  of  opinion  of  three  exponents  of  street  car  advertising,  averaging 


222  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

far-reaching  cooperation  with  the  Government  in 
war  time  has  led  to  suggestions  involving  a  per 
manent  policy  of  Government  advertising.  This 
subject  deserves  careful  study;  but  it  may  be 
suggested  that  it  will  prove  advisable  to  confine 
Government  paid  advertising  to  the  setting  forth  of 
facts,  rather  than  to  expanding  it  in  the  direction 
of  propaganda.  It  is  hardly  the  function  of  a. 
democratic  government  to  guide  the  thoughts  and 
desires  of  its  people  in  too  much  detail.  It  may 
well  be  true,  however,  that  a  great  deal  can  be  done 
by  advertising  to  the  public  the  facilities  of  the 
Government  along  the  lines  of  agriculture;  ad 
vertising  to  business  men  how  the  Customs  Service 


their  estimates,  is  one  million  more  than  Mr.  Thayer's  $15,000,000. 
Jesse  H.  Neal,  of  the  Associated  Business  Papers,  Inc.,  says  $25,000,000 
to  $40,000,000  was  spent  last  year  in  the  business  press.  For  specialty 
advertising,  figures  compiled  some  years  ago  by  the  National  Associa 
tion  of  Advertising  Specialty  Manufacturers  are  believed  to  be  correct 
today.  The  estimate  then  given  was  $30,000,000. 

Modifying  Mr.  Thayer's  estimate  in  the  light  of  these  data  (and 
averaging  Mr.  Neal's  statement)  gives  a  total  of  $605,000,000  for  these 
forms  of  advertising  only.  There  yet  remains,  of  course,  the  question 
of  samples  and  demonstration,  distributing,  house  organs  and  all  other 
forms  of  direct  advertising.  ,  .  .  The  most  exact  of  the  figures  on  direct 
mail  give  a  total  of  $442,500,000.  This  was  achieved  by  taking  all  the 
manufacturers,  wholesalers,  jobbers,  retailers,  mail-order  houses,  etc  , 
in  the  United  States,  estimating  an  average  appropriation  for  direct 
mail,  and  combining  the  aggregates.  Thirty-nine  thousand  high-rated 
manufacturers  are  estimated  to  spend  $5,000  each;  100,000  other 
manufacturers  $500  each;  40,000  wholesalers  and  jobbers  $500  each; 
1,500,000  retailers  $50  each;  100,000  banks,  real  estate  companies, 
brokers,  etc.,  $500  each;  800  mail  order  houses  $50,000  each;  2,500 
department  stores  $5,000  each.  It  will  readily  be  seen  what  enormous 
possibilities  for  error  are  contained  in  estimates  made  in  this  fashion. 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  223 

functions;  advertising  to  the  public  the  technicali 
ties  of  the  tax  system;  and  in  a  hundred  other 
ways  aiding  our  public  officials  to  play  the  part  of 
an  intelligent  public  service  corporation  in  facilitat 
ing  the  fullest  possible  public  participation  in  the 
benefits  created  for  the  public  advantage. 

It  is  remarkable  how  this  great  system  has  de 
veloped  in  the  past  few  years.  Not  that  publicity 
is  new.  The  Egyptians  had  their  books  and  maga 
zines  and  bulletins,  and  as  they  were  carved  on 
solid  rock  they  were  far  more  durable  than  ours 
will  ever  be.  But  the  sporting  news  must  have 
been  rather  dull  reading  after  it  had  remained  cut 
into  the  side  of  a  palace  for  five  or  ten  centuries. 
If  one  of  the  venerable  mummies  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  should  suddenly  come  to  life  he  might 
well  find  the  war-bulletins  carved  in  the  Central 
Park  obelisk  somewhat  musty  and  primitive.  Even 
Caesar  established  a  more  up-to-date  news  agency. 
Ferrero  says,  in  his  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome: 
"It  was  he  who  originated  at  Rome  what  we  should 
describe  in  modern  language  as  a  popular  news 
paper.  With  the  increase  of  wealth  and  education 
curiosity  had  very  naturally  kept  pace,  and  there 
were  people  in  Rome  who  sought  to  gain  a  living  by 
doing  something  analogous  to  the  modern  journals. 
They  gathered  what  they  considered  to  be  the  most 
important  and  interesting  public  and  private  in 
formation  of  the  day  and  at  regular  intervals  they 
collected  it  into  a  small  handbook  and  had  it  copied 


224  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

several  times  by  a  slave,  distributing  copies  to 
subscribers.  Naturally  this  was  a  luxury  which 
only  the  rich  could  afford.  Caesar  seems  to  have 
passed  a  decree  that  one  of  the  magistrates  should 
be  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  causing  a  resume  of 
the  most  important  news  to  be  inscribed  on  white 
washed  walls  in  different  parts  of  the  city,  with  the 
arrangement  that  when  the  news  was  stale  the  walls 
should  be  whitewashed  again  for  other  news  to  take 
its  place.  In  this  way  even  the  poorest  people 
could  be  kept  informed  about  all  that  went  on." 

And  then  Ferrero  records  an  item  which  must 
have  been  of  great  significance  to  the  people  of 
Rome  if  by  chance  treaties  of  peace  were  ever 
under  discussion  in  those  days:  "Caesar  also  ar 
ranged  that  reports  of  sittings  of  the  Senate  should 
be  made  in  a  more  regular  manner  and  put  at  the 
disposition  of  the  public." 

But  the  greatest  contrast  between  old  and  new 
publicity  facilities  is  to  be  seen  in  the  development 
of  our  own  nation.  In  the  Federal  Convention 
which  drafted  the  national  Constitution  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1787,  after  a  war  fought  to  a  considerable 
extent  on  the  basis  of  popular  rights,  there  was 
naturally  a  substantial  sentiment  in  favor  of  the 
direct  popular  election  of  the  president;  but  one 
of  the  great  objections  raised  was  that  a  candidate 
proposed  in  Massachusetts  would  not  be  known  in 
Virginia,  and  one  brought  forward  in  Carolina  would 
be  wholly  unfamiliar  in  Maine.  The  suggestion  in 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  225 

the  Convention  that  the  electors  should  be  chosen 
by  the  state  legislature  and  that  a  meeting  of  these 
electors  should  then  be  held  in  the  Federal  city  to 
decide  upon  a  chief  magistrate,  was  met  by  the 
very  serious  objection  that  it  was  considered  im 
possible  to  find  really  suitable  men  who  would  be 
able  to  undertake  so  long  and  difficult  a  journey 
for  such  a  purpose. 

It  is  hard  for  the  modern  mind  to  take  the  jump 
from  colonial  days  with  high  cost  of  postage,  the 
almost  entire  absence  of  newspapers,  and  the  almost 
unbelievable  difficulty  of  transportation,  to  the  pres 
ent  day  with  its  two  cent  postage,  its  network  of 
railroads  and  highroads,  its  twenty-three  thousand 
newspapers  and  magazines,  its  telephone  and  tele 
graph  and  wireless  and  airplane  service.  Today  we 
have  the  common  experience  of  presidential  candi 
dates  traveling  with  comparative  ease  thousands 
of  miles  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other 
and  speaking  before  millions  of  people  during  a  few 
months  of  compaigning,  with  their  life  histories  in 
the  possession  of  everyone  and  every  detail  of  their 
features  familiar  to  dwellers  in  remotest  farms  and 
cabins  throughout  the  nation,  and  finally  millions 
of  votes  cast  in  a  single  day  and  the  full  results 
generally  tabulated  and  made  known  by  nightfall. 

It  is  the  function  of  the  newspapers  to  disseminate 
news  promptly,  and  of  the  magazines  to  disseminate 
views  thoroughly,  and  of  both  to  disseminate  this 
material  widely.  It  is  essentially  the  function  of 


226  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  great  news  service  to  disseminate  facts  instan 
taneously.  Thus,  literally  within  less  than  a  minute 
all  the  communities  of  the  United  States  may  be 
informed  of  a  great  event  or  set  thinking  about  the 
same  question.  Take  as  an  example  an  instance 
of  the  lighter  side  of  our  national  life.  When  the 
World's  Series  baseball  games  are  being  played, 
the  Associated  Press  links  up  about  30,000  miles  of 
telegraph  wire  on  a  single  circuit  extending  to  news 
paper  offices  in  cities,  towns  and  villages  throughout 
the  country,  before  whose  bulletin  boards,  in  many 
cases,  foregathers  virtually  the  entire  population. 
In  the  press  stand  at  the  game  sits  a  telegraph 
operator,  and  shortly  before  the  game  is  called  he 
begins  to  send  out  a  monotonous  series  of  rhythmical 
ticks  to  "warm"  the  wires  and  focus  the  attention 
of  the  receiving  operators  throughout  the  country. 
Beside  him  stands  an  observant  reporter  to  dictate 
a  running  story  of  the  game.  The  monotonous 
series  of  ticks  which  spell  no  words  is  interrupted 
only  to  send  the  few  brief  words  describing  each 
move.  Thus  in  less  than  a  minute  from  the  time 
"Babe"  Ruth  swats  the  ball  a  primitive  bang, 
sending  it  over  the  fence  for  a  home  run,  the  entire 
American  people  is  aware  of  the  fact. 

This  system  of  sending  news  instantaneously  to 
the  entire  nation  is  not  without  its  social  significance 
in  its  power  to  unite  the  thoughts  of  the  nation  on  a 
single  idea.  For  even  if  the  same  expedition  is  not 
used  in  regard  to  all  news  as  in  the  baseball  game, 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  227 

it  is  never  more  than  a  few  minutes  before  the 
whole  country  has  been  apprised  of  events  of  national 
importance  by  the  alert  wires  of  the  news  agencies. 
The  availability  of  this  great  instrumentality  for 
instantaneous  news  dissemination,  always  at  hand, 
has  potentialities  which  have  not  yet  been  fully 
developed.  National  unity  must  be  based  upon 
national  conviction,  but  the  conviction  of  a  hundred 
million  people  must  be  based  upon  setting  the  facts 
before  them  promptly  and  faithfully.  The  system 
of  disseminating  news  by  flashes,  bulletins  and  short 
telegraphic  reports  tends  to  keep  this  form  of  news 
purified  of  bias  and  exaggeration,  because  sheer 
brevity  restricts  the  reports  to  absolute  facts,  and 
the  wide  variety  of  newspaper  membership  in  the 
news  associations  precludes  partisanship. 

It  may  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  newspapers 
and  magazines  of  the  country  won  the  war.  It 
certainly  is  fair  to  say  that  without  them  we  never 
should  have  gone  into  the  war  and  played  the  de 
ciding  part  that  it  was  our  opportunity  to  play  in 
the  greatest  struggle  of  all  time.  Without  them  the 
people  of  the  country  could  never  have  been  aroused 
to  an  understanding  of  the  situation  and  to  a  real 
ization  of  their  responsibility. 

Without  the  newspapers  of  the  country  the  war 
could  not  have  been  financed.  The  newspapers 
were  the  foundation  stone  of  the  great  Liberty 
Loan  campaigns  which  in  an  actual  selling  period 
of  115  days  placed  in  the  hands  of  approximately 


228  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

25,000,000  people  unaccustomed  to  investment 
$21,500,000  of  Government  securities.  In  the  great 
emergency  the  papers  of  the  country  without  re 
gard  to  any  consideration  but  patriotism  placed 
their  news  columns  at  the  disposal  of  the  Libervy 
Loan  Committees.  In  the  City  of  New  York  alone 
the  newspapers  published  without  charge  to  the 
Government  and  excluding  paid  advertising  about 
25,000  columns  of  material  covering  the  five  Liberry 
Loans.  The  war  campaigns  were  a  tremendous 
demonstration  of  the  power  of  the  press  to  educate, 
stimulate  and  organize  public  opinion.  The  lesson 
of  these  campaigns  for  the  future  is  that  the  leaders 
of  public  opinion  must  study  this  gigantic  power, 
semi-public  in  character,  and  play  their  part  in 
helping  it  to  discharge  its  great  responsibility 
fairly  and  truly. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  danger  in  our  time,  when  so 
much  is  printed,  that  people  should  think  that 
everything  in  print  is  true  and  regard  those  things 
which  do  not  get  into  print  as  almost  non-existent. 
A  great  deal  goes  on  that  does  not  get  into  the 
papers  and  a  great  many  movements  and  campaigns, 
political  and  other,  get  themselves  accomplished 
with  the  papers  in  opposition.  It  has  not  escaped 
observation  that  the  elections  of  the  chief  execu 
tives  of  two  of  our  great  American  cities  have  re 
cently  been  brought  about  in  spite  of  the  almost 
united  opposition  of  the  local  press.  The  springs 
which  supply  the  impulse  for  popular  movements 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  229 

often  lie  deeper  than  the  editorial  pencil.  But  in 
spite  of  the  occasional  striking  manifestations  of 
popular  independence  of  the  press  it  may  be  said 
that  by  and  large,  day  after  day  and  year  after 
year,  the  greatest  single  influence  upon  public  opinion 
in  modern  times  is  the  printed  word. 

This  being  so,  public  spirited  men  for  the  past  ten 
years  have  developed  a  more  or  less  standardized 
form  of  influencing  public  opinion,  known  as  a 
publicity  campaign.  This  undertaking  in  its  simple 
form  involves  the  appointment  of  a  salaried  cam 
paign  manager  who  divides  up  the  country  into 
districts  and  employs  assistants  to  go  into  the  vari 
ous  cities  and  towns  and  interview  editors  of  papers 
and  representative  men,  including,  for  example,  the 
labor  leader,  the  head  of  the  local  grange,  a  promi 
nent  banker,  lawyer,  clergyman,  the  head  of  the 
women's  organization,  the  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
the  Rotary  Club.  The  opinions  of  these  leaders 
are  forwarded  to  headquarters  and  a  card  catalogue 
made  up.  Pamphlets  are  issued  for  general  circula 
tion  and  interviews  are  prepared  for  local  papers, 
issuing  from  the  influential  men  in  each  section 
whose  names  will  carry  a  "story"  in  the  communi 
ties  in  which  they  are  known. 

Finally,  after  this  quiet  work  has  gone  on  for  some 
months,  assuming  that  the  object  is  to  accomplish 
legislation,  a  canvass  is  made  of  Congress  to  ascer 
tain  the  attitude  of  representatives  and  senators 
toward  the  measure  in  question.  A  list  is  made  of 


230  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  members  who  are  inclined  not  to  favor  the  bill 
Reference  is  made  to  the  card  catalogue  covering 
leaders  of  thought  in  their  respective  constituencies, 
and  letters  are  forthcoming  to  Washington  from  men 
who  can  write  to  their  representatives  in  a  par 
ticularly  intimate  way,  or  in  what  may  be  called 
the  "Dear  Bill  style." 

In  the  typical  case,  where  the  measure  involved 
appeals  fully  and  promptly  to  the  people  of  the 
country,  this  sort  of  campaign  has  merely  organized 
public  sentiment  and  has  brought  about  at  an  early 
date  the  passage  of  the  bill  which  probably  would 
have  passed  anyway.  Such  a  campaign  should  not 
be  very  expensive.  Modern  organization  methods, 
especially  following  the  lessons  of  the  war,  have 
standardized  such  campaigns  calling  for  simple 
and  straightforward  action,  upon  a  basis  which 
need  not  involve  the  dangers  surrounding  the  out 
lay  of  vast  sums  of  money.  The  general  rule  holds, 
of  course,  that  the  more  publicity  used  within 
reasonable  limits  the  quicker  the  desired  results 
are  obtained.  The  Liberty  Loan  campaigns  were, 
in  gross  outlay,  the  most  expensive  in  history.  The 
work  to  be  done  in  a  few  weeks  was  stupendous, 
both  from  the  standpoint  of  the  amount  of  bonds 
to  be  sold  and  the  number  of  people  to  be  reached. 
The  cost  was,  therefore,  actually  very  large.  But 
relatively  it  was  small.  The  entire  publicity  ex 
pense  of  the  loan  campaigns,  including  advertis 
ing,  news  service,  parades,  speakers  and  a  great 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  231 

variety  of  features,  indoors  and  out,  was  less  than 
one-twenty-fifth  of  one  per  cent  of  the  amount 
realized. 

One  great  advantage  of  this  form  of  the  modern 
publicity  campaign  is  that  it  has  to  a  great  extent 
taken  the  lobbyist  out  of  Washington.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  newspaper  editor  it  has  the  dis 
advantage  of  bearing  down  very  heavily  upon  his 
powers  of  discrimination  because  of  the  great 
variety  of  literature  which  comes  over  his  desk. 
Here  again  the  standard  is  improving,  however, 
and  the  day  of  the  press  agent  who  turns  out  false 
and  flowery  matter  in  endless  bulk  to  stuff  the 
waste  baskets  of  ten  thousand  editors  is  happily 
passing  away.  To  an  increasing  extent  the  material 
which  editors  are  receiving  is  actual  news.  A  study 
of  any  daily  newspaper  will  show  that  a  substantial 
portion  of  the  material  published  is  prepared  outside 
of  newspaper  offices.  But  for  the  material  daily 
sent  to  editors  as  "publicity,"  and  often  complained 
of  by  them,  the  reportorial  and  editorial  salary  rolls 
of  American  newspapers  would  need  to  be  increased 
by  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  annually. 

In  the  future  publicity  work  will  need  to  be 
more  and  more  expertly  managed  as  the  machinery 
becomes  more  generally  familiar.  Not  only  will 
the  managers  of  campaigns  have  to  be  better 
trained  and  better  paid  men,  but  the  leaders  of 
opinion  who  serve  on  the  directorates  of  the  cam 
paign  organizations,  and  furnish  a  large  part  of 


232  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  funds,  will  have  to  give  more  close  personal  at 
tention,  first  of  all  to  a  most  careful  analysis  of  the 
character  of  the  campaigns  undertaken,  their  public 
advantage  and  their  timeliness,  and  after  the  cam 
paigns  have  started  they  will  have  to  devote  more 
time  to  putting  their  own  personality  and  enthusiasm 
into  the  organization  and  publicity.  Brain-powe .- 
and  vision  cannot  be  delegated.  Tremendous  mis 
takes  have  been  made  through  simply  "hiring  some 
one  to  do  it"  and  paying  out  vast  sums  to  people 
who  didn't  do  it. 

The  liberal  leaders  of  the  future  must  be  more 
accessible  to  the  newspapers.  In  the  old  days  when 
the  standards  of  newspapers  were  lower,  when  they 
were  crowded  with  utterly  false  stories  and  shame 
less  advertisements  of  bogus  medicines  and  bogus 
stocks,  and  when  the  standards  of  business  were 
lower,  a  natural  antipathy  developed  between  these 
two  essential  elements  of  our  modern  life.  But 
in  these  days  when  the  standards  of  all  but  a  very 
few  of  our  great  newspapers  are  clean  and  straight 
forward  and  when  the  average  business  man  has 
very  little  to  conceal  on  the  grounds  of  policy  and 
nothing  because  of  its  impropriety,  the  newspaper 
man  should  be  a  welcome  visitor. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  reciprocal  responsibility. 
It  imposes  upon  newspaper  men  a  greater  degree 
of  responsibility  not  only  to  the  person  who 
receives  them,  not  only  to  their  own  papers,  but 
to  the  general  public.  An  ideal  reporter,  of 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  233 

course,  serves  as  the  true  eyes  and  ears  of  the 
great  absent  public,  and  he  therefore  has  a  public 
duty  to  perform,  —  that  of  seeing,  hearing  and 
reporting  truthfully,  fearlessly,  without  bias.  Un 
less  he  does  this,  the  public  becomes  blinded,  it 
hears  falsely  and  is  misled  into  erroneous  con 
structions  and  unfortunate  judgments.  The  re 
sponsibility  of  hearing  and  seeing  rightly  implies 
that  a  reporter  should  see  the  facts  that  are  given 
to  him  in  their  true  perspective  and  sense  the  ex 
istence  of  essential  facts  which  are  being  withheld. 
It  requires  that  he  be  trained  in  the  power  of  analysis 
and  discrimination,  and  that  he  have  a  keen  sense 
of  proportion  and  a  minimum  of  personal  bias. 
Only  when  a  reporter  carries  these  qualities  into  his 
work  is  he  serving  the  public  well  and  when  he  does 
he  is  entitled  to  the  open  door.  Intelligent  de 
mocracy  is  founded  on  a  popular  understanding  of 
facts,  and  unless  these  facts  are  presented  to  the 
public  fairly,  cleanly  and  honestly,  the  basis  of 
democracy  in  a  country  of  the  size  and  complexity 
of  modern  America,  cannot  be  sound. 

Naturally,  there  are  times  for  publicity  and  times 
for  silence;  but  there  is  no  time  when  a  newspaper 
man  should  be  shown  the  door  empty-handed.  This 
may  be  said  almost  without  qualification,  because 
there  are  very  few  instances  on  record,  in  the  past  de 
cade  of  constant  newspaper  contact  with  the  most 
vital  developments  of  business  and  political  life,  where 
a  newspaper  man  has  violated  a  confidence  and  pub- 


234  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

lished  a  story  which  he  has  been  asked  to  keep 
confidential.  Gradually  business  men  are  coming  to 
realize  that  the  newspaper  man  is  their  friend  and 
that  in  the  great  constructive  work  which  lies 
ahead  of  the  leaders  of  the  future,  in  bringing  about 
mutual  understanding  between  the  business  world 
and  labor,  and  between  both  these  agencies  and  the 
public  which  is  so  profoundly  affected  by  the  mis 
takes  and  successes  of  both,  the  newspapers  of  the 
nation  will  play  a  vital  part. 

The  same  is  true  of  politics.  The  public  is  en 
titled  to  know  what  its  public  servants  are  doing. 
There  are  times  to  reveal  measures  in  full,  and  times 
to  send  out  "feelers"  in  order  to  sense  the  public 
attitude.  All  this  is  legitimate,  and  contributes 
toward  sound  results.  But  to  be  inaccessible  to  the 
press  is  virtually  political  suicide,  and  the  public 
should  rejoice  in  this  fact.  In  a  long  and  vital 
public  career,  Theodore  Roosevelt  never  refused  to 
see  newspaper  men.  He  rarely  refused  to  tell  them 
all  he  knew,  though  much  of  what  he  might  tell 
was  confidential,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  every  newspaper  man  who  ever  came  in  con 
tact  with  Roosevelt  not  only  respected  him  but 
loved  him.  It  is  a  great  man  who  can  be  a  hero  to 
reporters. 

In  addition  to  developing  a  close  contact  between 
business  men  and  the  newspapers  of  the  country, 
there  is  a  great  need  in  the  American  business  world 
today  of  one  or  more  strong,  vigorously  edited  and 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  235 

widely  read  weekly  journals  of  applied  economics. 
We  are  happily  getting  away  from  the  days  when 
financial  and  trade  papers  were  started  largely  for 
the  advertising  they  could  get,  and  when  comments 
and  criticisms  in  such  journals  were  governed 
largely  by  the  presence  or  absence  in  the  advertis 
ing  pages  of  the  companies  discussed.  The  tradi 
tion  of  the  locked  door  between  the  advertising 
department  and  the  editorial  department  is  one  of 
the  most  salutary  and  necessary  unwritten  laws  of 
American  journalism,  and  it  is  to  the  great  interest 
of  leaders  of  opinions  that  this  tradition  should  be 
maintained  in  the  most  rigid  manner.  We  need 
journals  of  opinion  that  are  fearless  and  at  the  same 
time  constructive,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  business 
men  to  support  journals  which  rigidly  adhere  to 
these  principles  and  to  support  them  with  ad 
vertising  without  expecting  editorial  support  in 
return. 

At  present  the  technical  field  is  well  covered. 
The  economic  and  financial  fundamentals  are  ac 
curately  and  diligently  set  forth,  but  we  still  have 
some  distance  to  go  before  the  American  standard 
of  weekly  business  and  economic  journalism  in  the 
broadest  sense  achieves  the  standards  of  certain 
French  and  British  weeklies.  One  of  the  objects 
to  be  obtained  is  a  real  national  circulation,  so  that 
the  varied  geographic  differences  which  characterize 
the  American  business  problem  in  different  sec 
tions  of  the  country  may  be  welded  into  a  national 


236  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

policy.  The  excellent  magazine  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  United  States  has  taken  an  im 
portant  step  in  this  direction,  but  in  addition  there 
is  room  for  an  independent  and  constructive  journal 
which  is  national  in  viewpoint,  which  can  discuss 
the  problems  of  labor  and  capital  with  equal  ab 
sence  of  the  suspicion  of  class  bias. 

A  half  dozen  years  ago  an  experiment  was  tried 
by  The  Economic  World,  one  of  the  smaller  economic 
weeklies,  which  has  for  years  maintained  the  high 
est  standards  of  independence  and  able  editorship, 
with  almost  no  capital.  Its  influence  is  with  a 
small  and  select  group;  and  it  exemplifies  a  tre 
mendous  economic  loss  for  a  paper  of  this  kind  to 
go  to  the  effort  necessary  to  get  special  articles 
from  leaders  of  thought,  for  an  audience  number 
ing  a  few  thousand,  when  it  should  appeal  to  a 
few  hundred  thousand. 

This  paper  attempts  to  draw  together  in  its 
weekly  issues  the  best  thought  available  in  the 
country,  based  on  sound  economic  thinking,  com 
bined  with  actual  contact  with  practical  affairs. 
One  of  its  early  articles  was  written  by  George  W. 
Perkins,  entitled  "Economics  New  versus  Eco 
nomics  Old,"  which  brought  out  the  constructive 
point  of  view  of  a  man  associated  with  big  business. 
In  this  article  the  following  passage  occurred:  "Is 
it  not  just  possible  that  in  place  of  repressive  legis 
lation,  what  has  been  and  is  needed  is  permissive 
legislation,  with  restrictions  that  will  safeguard  the 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  237 

people  from  the  avarice  of  unscrupulous  men?  The 
people  must  be  satisfied  that  centralized  power  will 
not  be  abused  in  future  as  it  has  been  in  the  past. 
I  believe  a  solution  of  this  problem  must  come  largely 
through  the  setting  up  in  this  country  of  some  other 
standard  of  reward  than  that  of  the  almighty 
dollar  —  some  other  mark  of  distinction  than  the 
number  of  millions  a  man  is  wrorth.  The  yard 
stick  of  wealth  as  the  measure  of  a  man's  worth 
must  give  way  to  the  yard  stick  of  service.  Our 
industrial  system  must  be  such  that  a  man  holding 
a  high  business  position  will  be  held  in  high  esteem 
as  a  public  servant,  receiving  two  kinds  of  pay: 
his  reward  in  money  and  his  reward  in  honors, 
both  in  exchange  for  service  actually  rendered. 
Publicity,  full  and  frank,  will  be  potential  in  es 
tablishing  such  a  system." 

The  article  then  goes  on  to  elaborate  upon  the 
importance  of  publicity.  "The  larger  our  industrial 
concerns  and  the  greater  the  power  of  individuals, 
the  more  searching  must  be  the  measure  of  publicity 
required  of  them  by  law  and  the  stronger  and 
more  constant  must  be  the  limelight  on  their  every 
action.  The  law  of  publicity  is  about  the  only  law 
governing  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to 
whom  the  people  give  vast  power.  They  can  af 
ford  to  give  him  this  power  because  everything  he 
does,  every  move  he  makes,  every  word  he  utters, 
almost  every  change  of  countenance  is  watched, 
recorded,  and  publicly  interpreted.  It  would  be  im- 


238  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

possible  to  have  any  code  of  laws  minutely  de 
fining  the  power  of  the  President  that  could  possibly 
be  as  effective  as  the  power  of  publicity  which  con 
stantly  regulates  and  controls  him.  What  better 
precedent  could  we  have  for  the  regulation  and 
control  of  our  semi-public  servants  in  our  great 
industrial  world?" 

This  article  involved  a  sincere  piece  of  con 
structive  thinking  and  it  attracted  such  general  at 
tention  that  it  was  reprinted  to  the  extent  of  several 
hundred  thousand  copies  and  circulated  through 
the  United  States,  with  the  result  that  the  editor 
received  letters  from  men  in  all  groups  of  our  busi 
ness  and  industrial  life,  including  professors  of 
economics  and  leaders  in  labor  organizations,  and 
an  attitude  distinctly  American,  rather  than  an  un- 
American  or  class  attitude  was  hinted  at.  Further 
articles  were  obtained,  from  professors  of  economics 
and  heads  of  corporations;  in  short  it  was  a  labora 
tory  experiment  in  applied  economics,  the  economics 
of  the  study  checked  up  with  the  economics  of  the 
market  place  so  that  there  was  left  no  question  as 
to  the  need  and  value  of  such  work  done  on  a  large 
scale  and  continued  year  after  year.  The  con 
clusion  borne  home  upon  those  who  were  active  in 
this  experiment  carried  on  over  a  period  of  two 
years  is  that  a  journal  which  can  interpret  to  America 
the  spirit  of  business  men  and  provide  a  forum  for 
the  frank  discussion  of  their  problems  will  find  a 
powerful  and  interesting  career  for  itself  in  this 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  239 

country.  But  the  venture  calls  for  substantial 
capital  placed  at  the  unrestricted  use  of  a  capable 
and  unbiased  staff. 

Although  the  facts  of  the  modern  world  are  widely 
told,  it  is  still  true  that  half  the  world  does  not  know 
what  the  other  half  thinks.  Rarely  have  we  had  a 
majority  of  the  people  in  favor  of  any  one  specific 
thing  at  any  one  time  in  this  country.  Professor 
Channing  in  his  "History  of  the  United  States" 
says  that  perhaps  less  than  half  of  the  American 
people  wanted  to  separate  from  England  at  the 
time  of  the  American  Revolution.  Probably  less 
than  half  of  the  American  people  favored  total 
prohibition  of  alcoholic  beverages.  Yet  the  Revo 
lution  was  right.  The  nation  is  now  wondering  if 
absolute  prohibition  is  right. 

The  lesson  we  may  draw  from  this  would  seem 
to  be  that  the  leaders  must  be  careful  in  what  di 
rection  they  lead.  They  must  be  careful  what  they 
say  for  publication;  but  when  they  do  talk  they 
must  express  their  own  honest  views;  and  when 
they  see  views  expressed  which  they  know  to  be 
unsound  they  must  not  hesitate  to  express  views  to 
the  contrary.  When  we  have  this  magnificent  and 
powerful  publicity  machinery  at  the  disposal  of 
the  nation  it  rests  with  the  leaders  to  lead  so  that 
matters  that  are  right  may  be  effected  quickly  and 
that  movements  which  are  not  right  may  be  checked 
before  they  go  so  far  as  to  get  themselves  on  the 
statute  books  and  put  the  people  to  the  pain,  con- 


240  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

fusion  and,  above  all,  the  expense  that  follows  ex 
perimentation  with  glittering  novelties  conceived  by 
unthinking  enthusiasts  and  carried  through  to  a 
temporarily  successful  conclusion  because  of  the 
apathy  and  inertia  of  men  and  women  who  know 
better.  If,  with  this  tremendous  publicity  ma 
chinery  ready  at  hand,  and  the  methods  of  arous 
ing  and  organizing  sound  and  irresistible  public 
support  so  clearly  available  for  those  who  want  to 
study  them,  the  leaders  of  American  thought  con 
tinue  to  be  too  busy  to  think  and  act  and  talk  on 
public  questions  and  leave  it  to  agitators  to  sow 
the  seeds  of  Bolshevism  among  the  people  of  this 
country,  they  have  only  themselves  to  blame  should 
they  reap  the  bitter  harvest  of  anarchy. 

For  two  can  play  at  this  game.  False  teachers 
can  be  just  as  good  at  organization  and  publicity  as 
true  teachers,  and  it  may  be  added  that  the  radical 
propagandists  have  a  much  easier  time  than  the 
liberals  or  the  conservatives,  because  radical,  revo 
lutionary  and  subversive  doctrines  can  much  more 
readily  be  presented  in  a  way  which  will  arrest  at 
tention  and  tickle  the  interests  of  those  whose 
thoughts  are  dominated  by  their  feelings.  But  in 
opposition  to  this,  the  liberal  leaders  have  on  their 
side  sanity  and  common  sense  to  appeal  to  the 
sounder  elements  of  the  community,  which  will 
always  be  in  America  the  most  numerous  elements. 
And  the  challenge  of  liberal  leadership  is  nowhere 
stronger  than  when  it  calls  upon  the  writers  and 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  241 

organizers  of  the  future  to  present  common  sense 
in  as  compelling  and  inspiring  a  form  as  that  in 
which  the  radicals  sometimes  clothe  nonsense.  Let 
us  not  leave  all  the  cleverness  to  the  radicals  — • 
and  let  us  not  underestimate  them.  But  cleverness 
or  no  cleverness,  we  must  rely  more  upon  thinking 
and  less  upon  phrase-making.  Along  the  stony  road 
of  thought  in  a  day  when  there  is  no  end  of  books 
to  read  and  speakers  to  listen  to,  when  there  is  no 
limit  to  reforms  and  campaigns  and  movements 
and  undertakings  requiring  clear  thinking  and  dis 
crimination,  it  is  little  wonder  that  people  are 
lured  aside  by  the  soft  music  of  generalization  and 
the  fairy  architecture  of  mere  words. 

Phrases  in  themselves  are  not  the  evil  com 
plained  of.  The  evil  lies  in  false  ideas  or  half- 
truths  set  up  in  the  tinkling  form  of  slogans.  Great 
phrases  have  always  been  powerful  in  influencing 
public  opinion  and  determining  action.  Men  and 
\vomen  have  an  inherent  love  of  symbols,  but  the 
danger  of  symbols  is  that  they  may  conceal  rather 
than  epitomize  the  truth. 

Americans  have  been  particularly  susceptible  to 
the  power  of  slogans.  In  the  days  of  the  War  of 
Independence  men  talked  glibly  about  "no  taxa 
tion  without  representation"  wrhen  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  economics  of  the  taxation  argument  of  the 
revolutionary  fathers  is  very  hard  to  defend,  and 
the  granting  by  Parliament  of  full  representation  to 
colonists  who  lived  three  thousand  miles  away  in 


242  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  days  of  sailing  ships  would  have  had  little  or  no 
influence  in  permanently  checking  the  swelling  im 
pulse  towards  liberty  in  the  hearts  of  the  American 
colonists.  During  the  War  of  1812,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  England  was  very  heavily  occupied  with 
her  neighbors  in  Europe,  the  young  Americans 
could  make  very  little  progress  with  their  war  until 
finally  Lawrence  in  a  sea  fight  gave  utterance  to 
the  immortal  phrase,  " Don't  give  up  the  ship!" 
This  dogged  command  connoted  victory,  although 
the  Chesapeake,  which  Lawrence  commanded,  was  a 
more  powerful  man-of-war  than  the  British  Shannon 
which  destroyed  and  sank  the  American  ship.  But 
this  slogan  did  more  than  any  facts  to  stimulate  the 
enthusiasm  and  confidence  of  the  American  public. 
Just  before  the  Civil  War  great  phrases  filled  the 
air.  "The  multitude  took  no  pains  to  argue  out 
the  que  tion  as  to  what  the  fathers  had  intended  or 
what  the  Constitution  allowed  and  what  it  forbade. 
A  few  burning  phrases  served  as  watchwords  and 
war-cries,  and  wrere  accepted  as  statements  not  to 
be  gainsaid.  The  wraiths  of  Jackson  and  Webster 
hovered  in  the  air.  'The  union  shall  and  must 
be  preserved,'  ' Liberty  and  union,  now  and  forever, 
one  and  inseparable.'  .  .  .  'If  any  man  attempts  to 
haul  down  the  American  flag,  shoot  him  on  the 
spot/':  During  the  Oregon  controversy  the  rights 
of  the  case  were  obscured  by  the  popular  ultimatum 
"Fifty-four-forty  or  fight."  Some  day  we  may  ex 
pect  to  open  our  own  paper  and  read  the  stirring 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  243 

slogan:  "Fifty-fifty  or  fight,"  and  we  may  well 
wonder  what  agitator  is  contented  with  so  modest 
a  division  of  rights  and  profits! 

During  the  recent  great  campaigns  throughout  the 
country  for  Liberty  Loan,  Red  Cross  and  other 
great  national  interes  s,  in  fact  during  the  whole 
period  before  and  after  the  war,  public  opinion  re 
acted  very  fully  to  slogans.  There  has  never  been 
a  time  when  so  many  phrases  have  filled  the  air: 
"Too  proud  to  fight";  "Buy  Liberty  Bonds"; 
"He  kept  us  out  of  war";  "Make  the  world  safe 
for  democracy";  "Finish  the  job." 

Even  more  remarkable  in  our  modern  life  than 
the  use  of  slogans  is  the  use  of  trade-marks  and 
symbols.  We  are  as  susceptible  to  picture  writing 
as  were  the  ancient  Egyptians.  We  are  as  de 
pendent  upon  symbols  as  were  the  Arabians  who 
devised  the  system  of  numerals  which  we  use  today. 
Nabisco,  W.S.S.,  Uneeda,  B.V.D.,  the  Gold  Dust 
Twins,  the  Dutch  Cleanser  girl,  are  known  to  every 
one.  Even  great  men  are  sometimes  dubbed, 
through  popular  affection  and  the  limitations  under 
which  the  headline  writers  of  the  newspapers  must 
work,  with  abbreviated  sobriquets.  The  whole 
world  knew  what  "T.  R."  stood  for.  All  over  the 
country  a  few  pictures  influence  the  course  of  voting 
in  thousands  of  elections.  As  the  New  York  Globe 
humorously  observes:  "Even  our  ballots  remind  us 
that  the  days  of  political  symbols  are  not  yet  past 
and  that  if  we  have  not  the  red  rose  and  the  white 


244  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

to  fight  over  we  have  arms  with  torches,  stars, 
eagles,  and  other  pictorial  battle  cries  about  which 
to  rally.  The  voter  need  not  take  the  pains  to 
ascertain  whether  Hannibal  Simkins  is  the  man  for 
whom,  as  a  loyal  Republicrat,  he  ought  to  vote. 
He  has  but  to  note  whether  Simkins  and  the  rest 
of  the  names  on  which  he  is  tempted  to  linger  are 
preceded  by  the  mystic  sign  of  the  couchant  alligator. 
In  his  odd  moments  he  may  read  a  great  deal,  but 
when  he  finds  himself  in  a  tight  little  booth,  with  the 
fate  of  the  commonwealth  actually  in  his  hands, 
reading  may  not  come  easy.  With  what  relief, 
then,  he  catches  sight  of  the  picture.  A  list  of 
names,  a  platform,  even  a  principle,  one  may  for 
get,  but  who  will  forget  that  he  has  been  taught  to 
mark  with  an  X  every  name  preceded  by  the  por 
trait  of  an  oyster  or  a  cow  or  a  hippopotamus  or  a 
baseball  bat  or  a  piano  or  a  houn'  dog?  And  how 
much  the  American  party  system  has  depended  upon 
the  symbolism  of  the  elephant  and  the  donkey,  how 
much  upon  the  art  of  the  cartoonist,  cannot  easily 
be  overestimated." 

Phrases  and  symbols  are  necessary  in  days  of 
war  when  great  results  must  be  accomplished 
quickly.  It  was  impossible  to  bring  to  the  under 
standing  of  a  hundred  million  people  in  a  few 
weeks  elaborate  and  logical  explanations  covering 
every  point  upon  which  the  immediate  assistance  of 
the  public  was  demanded,  but  wrhile  great  leaders 
will  facilitate  their  causes  if  they  have  the  ability 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  245 

to  invent  striking  phrases  which  embody  the  heart 
of  current  issues,  there  is  serious  danger  to  our 
people  in  the  development  of  the  pigeon-hole  habit 
of  mind,  each  compartment  tagged  with  a  neat 
phrase  into  which  all  their  conclusions  are  laid 
away  out  of  reach  of  any  possible  contact  with 
thought  and  analysis. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  one  of  the  great  phrase 
makers  of  our  time,  and  yet  he  realized  the  danger 
of  phrases.  "It  behooves  our  people,"  he  said, 
"never  to  fall  under  the  thraldrom  of  names  and 
least  of  all  to  be  led  by  designing  people  who  appeal 
to  the  preference  for,  or  antipathy  toward,  a  given 
name  in  order  to  achieve  some  alien  purpose.  Of 
course  such  misuse  of  names  is  as  old  as  the  history 
of  what  we  understand  when  we  speak  of  civilized 
mankind.  .  .  .  The  mob  leaders  usually  state  that 
all  they  are  doing  is  necessary  in  order  to  advance 
the  cause  of  'liberty'  while  the  dictator  and  the  oli 
garchy  are  usually  defended  on  the  ground  that  the 
cause  they  follow  is  absolutely  necessary  so  as  to 
secure  'order.'  Many  excellent  people  are  taken 
in  by  the  use  of  the  word  liberty  at  one  time  and 
the  use  of  the  word  order  at  the  other,  and  ignore 
the  simple  fact  that  despotism  is  despotism,  tyranny, 
tyranny,  oppression,  oppression,  whether  committeed 
by  one  individual  or  by  many  individuals,  by  a 
state  or  by  a  private  corporation." 

A  fact  to  be  noted  in  a  discussion  of  the  mar 
velous  modern  machinery  for  spreading  the  printed 


246  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

word  is  that  it  has  taken  the  emphasis  a  little  too 
much  away  from  the  spoken  word.  When  we  were 
a  tiny  republic  we  could  all  listen  to  our  great  men. 
In  the  great  mo  ements  which  are  going  to  be  neces 
sary  to  get  anything  like  a  majority  of  one  hundred 
million  people  to  think  alike  for  any  length  of  time 
on  any  subject  in  the  years  which  lie  ahead,  the 
printed  word  must  be  supplemented  by  constant, 
open  discussion.  The  printed  word  is  all  powerful 
if  rightly  handled;  but  the  spoken  word  is  a  most 
valuable  ally.  Indeed,  if  we  could  sit  down  and 
have  a  heart-to-heart  talk  with  each  person  who  is 
reached  by  a  piece  of  printed  propaganda  the  results 
would  be  infinitely  more  satisfactory.  The  good 
writer  is  constantly  trying  to  achieve  the  "personal 
touch"  in  his  story. 

In  any  organization  for  public  good  which  the 
future  may  bring  forth,  careful  consideration  must 
be  given  to  building  up  something  more  than  a 
distributing  agency  for  printed  material  and  a 
background  for  news.  An  organization  which  can 
quietly  extend  its  influence  by  means  of  small 
groups  of  determined  men  in  every  section  of  the 
country  who  actually  get  together  and  develop  a 
full  understanding  of  the  purposes  involved,  and  a 
burning  enthusiasm  for  their  accomplishment,  will 
have  the  best  guarantee  of  great  achievement. 
This  is  something  more  personal  even  than  the 
Forum  movement.  The  history  of  the  Round 
Table  in  England  is  a  good  illustration  of  what  is 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  247 

needed.  A  similar  organization  is  called  for  in 
America  where  our  great  distances  make  it  so  much 
harder  for  men  in  widely  separated  sections  to  get 
at  the  heart  of  each  other's  purposes  and  per 
sonalities. 

Friendships  and  crusades  cannot  be  scientifically 
organized.  But  given  the'fundamental  mutuality  of 
purpose  which  exists  among  liberal-minded,  men  in 
America  today,  and  given  the  critical  emergency 
which  calls  for  national  service  to  preserve  Ameri 
can  ideals  and  institutions,  a  form  of  association  can 
certainly  be  brought  about  which  will  provide  for 
an  effective  union  of  all  this  scattered  and  individual 
patriotism.  Such  small  groups  of  men,  mostly 
younger  men,  meeting  regularly  in  every  city  and 
town,  no  group  larger  than  fifteen,  each  unit  made 
up  of  individuals  of  varied  experience  and  con 
tacts,  conservative,  liberal  and  radical,  and  all  the 
units  in  communication  with  one  another  for  the 
exchange  of  ideas,  suggestions,  and  conclusions, 
would  certainly  prove  a  powerful  stimulus  for  clear 
thinking.  Such  an  American  Liberal  League,  or 
chain  of  Frontier  Clubs,  based  upon  close  personal 
associations  of  men,  would  form  a  basis  for  the 
swift  and  far-reaching  operation  of  the  more  im 
personal  machinery  of  printed  publicity;  it  would 
instantly  add  to  its  ring  of  sincerity,  and  stimu 
late  a  quiet,  steady,  compelling  growth  of  Ameri 
canism  the  very  opposite  of  the  spectacular  and 
superficial  and  somewhat  evanescent  sort  which 


248  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

sometimes  attends  hastily  conducted  campaigns  of 
education. 

But  whether  it  be  the  spoken  word  or  the  written 
word,  the  weapon  of  language,  used  for  all  the  people, 
is  going  to  be  the  determining  factor  in  shaping  the 
destinies  of  America,  and  it  behooves  those  who 
feel  a  responsibility  for  the  perpetuation  of  American 
ism  to  enter  the  forum  of  publicity  and  stay  there. 
They  must  realize  they  are  handling  dynamite. 
Just  as  training  is  needed  before  men  can  become 
soldiers  and  fight  a  winning  fight,  so  it  is  advisable 
for  those  who  would  fight  effectively  with  the 
weapons  of  peace  to  give  a  little  study  to  the  science 
of  publicity  beforehand.  Experts  are  available. 
Advertising  counselors  and  publicity  organizers  of 
an  entirely  new  and  modern  stamp  are  coming  to  be 
available  today  to  advise  on  these  great  campaigns 
of  democracy.  But  it  cannot  be  repeated  too 
often  that  if  our  men  of  light  and  leading  are  in 
truth  to  lead  they  cannot  do  it  wholly  by  proxy. 
When  the  battle  starts  they  must  be  at  the  head  of 
their  troops,  or  at  least  at  General  Headquarters, 
ready  to  apply  to  the  work  in  hand  all  the  resource 
fulness  and  energy  and  enthusiasm  which  has  won 
for  them  the  right  to  leadership.  It  will  take  time; 
but  it  is  worth  it.  And  if  the  work  is  not  done 
in  this  personal  way,  certainly  five  times  out 
of  seven  it  will  be  done  imperfectly,  if  it  is  done 
at  all. 

The  main  elements  of  publicity  can  be  understood 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  249 

by  almost  any  inquiring  mind.  The  actual  handling 
of  the  work  is  both  an  art  and  a  science;  a  full 
ability  to  master  the  technique  must  be  born  in  a 
man.  And  above  all,  there  is  a  strange  psychologi 
cal  element  in  the  development  of  a  great  campaign 
involving  popular  contacts,  which  can  only  be  felt. 
It  can  never  be  fully  explained.  It  is  a  common  ex 
perience  of  those  who  have  taken  part  in  the  guid 
ing  or  shaping  of  public  opin'on  through  a  publicity 
campaign  that  the  answer  comes  ike  a  flash,  no 
one  can  tell  exactly  when  or  how.  A  political 
campaign  is  on.  The  outcome  is  uncertain.  A 
thousand  workers  think  they  know.  The  mass  of 
voters  say  nothing.  Literature  appears,  speeches 
are  made,  parades,  broadsides,  posters;  all  seems 
in  confusion.  What  will  the  outcome  be? 

Suddenly  one  morning  the  campaigner  goes  down 
town  as  usual,  but  before  long  he  becomes  con 
scious  of  something  new  in  the  air,  or  is  it  in  his 
mind?  At  any  rate  it  is  a  perfectly  definite  feeling 
that  "things  feel  better"  for  the  cause.  He  meets 
his  friends,  and  strangely  enough,  he  finds  they  feel 
the  same  way.  It  was  so  in  the  Liberty  Loan  cam 
paigns.  There  always  came  a  day,  before  the  end 
of  the  campaign,  when  the  "feel  of  it"  was  better, 
not  because  of  the  money  which  had  come  in,  be 
cause  that  only  came  in  at  the  very  end  in  con 
clusive  volume,  but  because  the  group  of  men  who 
were  leading  the  work,  sensitive  from  long  contact 
to  every  subtle  change  in  the  atmosphere  of  public 


250  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

reaction,  all  simultaneously  seemed  to  agree  that  it 
was  "going  over." 

Newspaper  men  know  this  well.  It  is  constantly 
observable  in  political  campaigns.  It  was  recently 
described  in  the  New  York  Tribune  in  these  words: 

"We  speak  of  the  crystallization  of  public  senti 
ment  and  opinion  because  that  takes  place  also  in 
the  same  mysterious  and  imperceptible  way.  You 
do  not  see  the  separate  thoughts  assume  a  certain 
shape  and  add  themselves  silently  to  the  concrete 
whole.  You  only  know  that  it  happens  by  some 
law  of  rhythmic  affinity,  and  that  after  such  con 
fusion  of  thought  and  commotion  of  ideas  people 
suddenly  become  united  in  one  sovereign  emotion. 
There  is  no  sense  of  the  process  taking  place. 
There  is  only  from  time  to  time  the  realization 
that  it  has  greatly  advanced  toward  its  com 
pletion.  ' 

Leaders  of  thought  need  to  get  together  and  check 
up  their  views  with  one  another  before  attempting 
to  apply  them  to  public  conditions.  But  once  this 
is  done  the  scope  of  our  public  life  today  urgently 
requires  that  our  leaders  should  learn  to  use  the 
highly  developed  machinery  by  pieans  of  which  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men  and  women  may  be 
touched,  so  that  sound  views  may  quickly  gain  ac 
ceptance  and  lasting  support.  One  of  the  arrest 
ing  things  in  our  vast  and  complicated  modern  life 
is  the  realization  of  how  little  one  man  can  do  alone. 
In  all  of  us,  perhaps,  there  is  something  of  the 


THE  WEAPONS  OF  TRUTH  251 

martyr,  something  of  the  monastic  thinker  who 
would  commune  with  eternal  things  and  give  forth 
his  ideas  to  survive  or  perish,  as  fate  may  decree; 
but  in  most  men  the  coming  of  conviction  is  usually 
accompanied  by  -  missionary  zea'  to  go  forth  among 
the  people  and  bear  rigorous  testimony  to  the 
truth  and  power  of  the  vision.  This  is  the  American 
way. 

Perhaps  as  a  nation  we  are  inclined  to  express 
ourselves  before  our  casual  thoughts  have  had  time 
to  become  convictions.  Perhaps  our  endlessly  pro 
ductive  mill  of  words  and  phrases  is  fed  with  more 
chaff  than  wheat.  One  of  the  fundamentals  of 
liberal  leadership  in  the  coming  age  will  be  that  we 
shall  not  talk  first  and  think  afterwards.  And 
when  this  has  come  to  pass  we  may  for  the  first 
time  realize  to  the  full  the  outstanding  glory  of 
the  American  machinery  of  communication  and 
popular  education  through  the  printed  word.  This 
organization  is  the  most  powerful  the  wrorld  has 
ever  seen.  It  is  the  most  ingenious,  the  most  far- 
reaching,  the  most  sensitive  piece  of  machinery  for 
moving  the  minds  of  men  that  the  human  race  has 
ever  developed.  tj 

It  is  one  of  the  respon  ibilities  of  modern  leader 
ship  to  see  to  it  that  from  all  proper  sources  infor 
mation  is  available  to  the  press.  If  the  raw  material 
of  publicity  is  sound  the  product  will  generally  be 
sound.  If  the  fountain  head  is  truth,  the  product 
will  be  truth. 


252  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

If  modern  leadership  will  learn  the  proper  use 
of  this  great  machinery  for  giving  currency  to  facts 
and  opinions,  if  it  will  wield  this  great  weapon 
judiciously  and  valiantly,  the  truth  will  prevail 
and  the  institutions  of  our  fathers  will  endure. 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD 
AFFAIRS 

THROUGH  personal  contacts,  combined  with  the 
power  of  publicity,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in 
stances  in  history  of  a  change  of  attitude  of  whole 
nations  toward  one  another  has  resulted  from  the 
Great  War.  It  has  taken  place  so  silently  that  its 
significance  is  scare  ly  realized.  And  yet  its  im 
portance  is  immeasurable.  It  may  be  said  today, 
for  the  first  time,  that  America  and  England, 
America  and  France  understand  one  another.  It 
is  beginning  to  be  true  of  America  and  other  coun 
tries.  Obviously  this  does  not  mean  that  these 
nations  agree  with  one  another  in  all  things,  nor 
that  they  may  not  in  the  future  bitterly  disagree. 
It  does  mean  that  the  raw  material  of  mutual 
understanding  now  exists  to  a  greater  degree  than 
ever  before.  In  view  of  the  great  international 
problems  which  face  us  in  the  yea  s  ahead,  this  ad 
vance  may  well  prove  to  be  a  most  vital  element 
in  the  peace  of  the  world. 

Our  fathers  tell  us  that  for  many  generations  there 
was  a  decided  self-consciousness  on  the  part  of 
Americans  in  the  presence  of  visitors  from  abroad. 
It  was  due  in  part  to  the  attitude  of  our  foreign 

253 


254  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

friends  themselves,  who  have  often  failed  to  under 
stand  the  characteristics  and  purposes  of  our  people. 
Judgments  were  often  based  upon  European  stand 
ards,  and  criticism  directed  at  the  absence  of  the 
fine  fruits  of  artistic  skill  and  inspiration.  "Where 
is  your  Michelangelo?  Where  are  your  cathedrals? 
Where  do  you  conceal  your  Milton  and  your  Shake 
speare?"  They  searched  in  vain  along  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi  for  a  Mendelssohn  or  a  Haydn, 
and  were  disappointed  at  the  absence  of  a  new 
Keats  and  a  modern  Dante  in  Boston  or  Phila 
delphia.  They  sought  personages  and  overlooked 
persons.  Dickens  weighed  us  and  found  us  want 
ing;  Carlyle  vigorously  deplored  our  lack  of  all 
but  material  accomplishment. 

In  a  substantial  way  this  attitude  was  justified. 
And  it  helped  us.  We  accepted  at  more  than  its 
worth,  perhaps,  the  estimate  of  Europe,  and  many 
Americans  who  failed  to  perceive  the  value  of  what 
America  was  con  ributing  to  the  world  withdrew 
from  our  energetic  midst  and  sought  the  more 
"refined"  surroundings  of  London,  Paris  or  Rome, 
returning  at  fortunately  rare  intervals  to  criticize, 
in  newly  acquired  accents  calculated  to  awe  the 
people  back  home,  the  roughness  and  lack  of  nice 
understanding  in  new  countries.  This  attitude  in 
Americans  is  unsupportable  because  it  is  sham. 

We  gained  immeasurably,  however,  from  the 
emphasis  of  other  ideals  and  other  standards  than 
our  own  on  the  part  of  the  heirs  of  the  Renaissance 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    255 

and  the  age  of  Elizabeth.  We  do  not  regret  nor 
do  we  apologize  for  our  concentration  upon  the 
task  of  rearing  a  great  nation  across  a  wilderness 
of  forest  and  prairie  with  speed  undreamed  of  in 
the  usual  leisurely  and  ordered  progress  of  civiliza 
tion.  Ours  was  a  material  task,  and  it  naturally 
carried  with  it  a  tendency  to  value  above  their 
true  worth,  things  tangible.  But  as  we  have  come 
of  age  we  are  capable  of  appreciating  the  worth  of 
other  men's  achievements  without  minimizing  our 
own. 

But  there  was  something  very  real  underlying 
the  former  misunderstanding  which  so  irritated 
our  grandfathers  in  America.  It  took  its  place 
firmly  in  our  national  consciousness,  in  the  phrase 
of  James  Russell  Lowell,  as  "A  Certain  Condescen 
sion  in  Foreigner  ."  Lowell  felt  there  was  an 
element  of  snobbi  hness,  of  caste,  in  the  point  of 
view  of  our  visitors  who  seemed  unable  to  see  below 
the  surface  and  who  failed  to  perceive  the  existence 
in  the  young  American  of  a  generous  heart  and  a 
lofty  spirit.  "Every  European  candidly  admits  in 
himself  some  right  of  primogeniture  in  respect  to 
us,  and  pats  this  shaggy  continent  on  the  back  with 
a  lively  sense  of  generous  unbending." 

Almost  overnight  this  attitude  has  changed. 
The  war  has  taught  Europe  and  America  how  much 
they  have  in  common.  Our  soldiers  returned  from 
France  and  England  and  Italy  with  a  renewed  love 
of  America;  but  they  left  behind  them  most  of 


256  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

the  false  and  superficial  generalizations  with  re 
gard  to  Europe  which  they  had  gathered  from  ill- 
founded  traditions,  from  travelers'  tales,  from  the 
vaudeville  stage.  Instead  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  genus  Frenchman,  they  learned  the  character 
of  the  brave,  warm-hearted  soldiers  of  France.  At 
the  same  time  the  leaders  in  politics,  commerce  and 
finance  of  the  various  allied  n  tions  worked  together 
during  a  period  of  great  strain  and  came  to  know 
and  respect  one  another;  and  this  mutual  under 
standing  has  begun  to  make  its  way  into  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  world. 

When  the  war  began,  Americans  got  out  their 
maps  and  learned  for  the  first  time  where  most  of 
Europe  really  was.  A  mother  who  has  puzzled  out 
the  position  of  her  son's  regiment  near  a  little  town 
in  Fran  e  is  not  going  to  forget  that  lesson  in  geog 
raphy;  she  will  always  have  a  more  personal  feel 
ing  towards  the  country  of  Lafayette.  The  welcome 
given  in  America  to  the  Blue  Devils  came  from 
the  heart  of  our  people;  these  sturdy,  sunburned 
soldiers,  the  first  body  of  troops  we  had  seen  who 
had  been  for  years  in  the  trenches  our  own  men 
were  just  entering,  were  greeted  as  more  than 
brothers  in  arms.  And  so  it  was  with  the  Anzacs, 
the  Bersaglieri,  the  Alpini,  the  Belgians,  who  gave 
color  and  vividness  to  the  successive  patriotic 
campaigns  during  which  our  people  poured  forth 
twenty  billions  of  dollars  to  support  the  cause  of 
democracy.  We  have  as  a  people  at  last  taken 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    257 

our  place  in  world  consciousness.  We  can  no 
longer  regard  the  other  countries  of  the  world  as 
we  should  regard  infinitely  disconnected  planets 
peopled  by  men  and  women  having  no  more  con 
nection  with  our  intimate  life  or  vital  destiny 
than  the  speculative  inhabitants  of  Mars. 

But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  It  is  pleasant 
to  come  to  a  fuller  understanding  with  friends  who 
have  not  understood  us,  and  whom  we  have  not 
understood.  It  is  a  deep  satisfaction  to  have  men 
from  the  lands  of  older  cultural  achievement  recog 
nize  the  validi  y  and  hope  in  the  accomplishment  of 
American  democracy.  But  we  may  do  well  to 
speak  a  private  word  of  caution  to  each  other  here 
in  America  lest  we  feel  that  we  have  done  more  than 
we  have,  lest  we  believe  that  because  the  older 
civilization  had  to  call  upon  our  youthful  strength 
in  time  of  need  the  older  civilization  is  bankrupt 
and  all  the  hope  of  the  world  rests  on  ourselves. 
We  must  take  care  that  our  enthusiasm  does  not 
serve  some  European  Lowell  as  an  inspiration  for 
an  essay  "On  a  Certain  Condescension  in  Ameri 


cans." 


The  great  opportunity  of  the  post-war  period  is 
to  build  constructively  upon  the  foundations  of 
sympathetic  understanding  laid  during  the  days  of 
conflict.  Various  organizations  are  coming  into 
being  which  have  as  their  object  to  cultivate  a  more 
specific  understanding  between  America  and  the 
countries  of  Europe.  Much  can  be  done  along 


258  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

these  lines.  A  permanent  staff,  in  the  United  States 
and  in  France,  for  example,  can  interpret  and  trans- 
\  late  the  political,  economic,  social  and  artistic  life 
of  the  two  peoples,  correct  misapprehensions,  find 
ways  and  means  for  the  interchange  of  visits  which 
shall  not  involve  simply  a  round  of  formal  dinners, 
but  rather  an  opportunity  of  quietly  getting  at  the 
roots  of  national  character,  and  develop  a  true  basis 
for  increased  friendship  and  cooperation  frojn  day 
to  day,  and  from  year  to  year. 

In  the  fall  of  1919  an  International  Trade  Confer 
ence  was  held  in  this  country  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States. 
Distinguished  representatives  from  Belgium,  France, 
Great  Britain  and  Italy  were  brought  together  with 
practical  and  successful  representatives  of  Ameri 
can  business  and  finance.  For  a  week  these  men 
sat  around  the  table  together,  in  small  groups, 
and  behind  closed  doors  so  that  they  could  open 
their  minds  to  one  another  in  the  frankest  possible 
manner.  The  results  were  striking.  The  Ameri 
can  bankers  and  business  men  who  came  from  all 
sections  of  the  United  States  gained  a  first-hand 
knowledge  of  European  conditions  which  could  not 
have  been  obtained  in  any  other  way,  and  the 
European  visitors  absorbed  the  point  of  view  of 
America  and  gained  an  insight  into  our  own  prob 
lems,  through  friendly  contact  and  the  spoken 
word,  which  no  amount  of  correspondence  could 
have  accomplished. 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    259 

Every  American  at  that  conference  left  with  a 
deeper  realization  of  the  contribution  to  civiliza 
tion,  our  civilization,  made  by  the  Allies  during 
the  war,  and  a  higher  and  more  personal  estimate  of 
that  important  element  in  the  credit  of  those  na 
tions  which  rests  upon  their  record  of  achievement 
and  sacrifice.  It  became  a  practical  rather  than  a 
theoretical  consideration  that  any  estimate  of  their 
national  credit  must  be  predicated  not  merely  upon 
the  marshaling  of  tangible  assets,  but  to  an  equal 
degree  upon  the  element  of  character.  In  the  days 
to  come,  if  the  American  public  is  asked  to  invest 
in  securities  based  upon  the  faith  we  have  in  the 
peoples  who  were  our  allies  in  France,  the  response 
will  be  influenced  by  the  realization  on  the  part  of 
our  people  that  America  cannot  long  endure  if 
England,  France,  Belgium  and  Italy  are  swept 
away  or  their  institutions  over-turned.  Our  people 
realize  today,  as  they  did  not  at  all  realize  in  1914, 
that  the  contagion  of  radicalism,  eating  away  the 
foundations  of  law  and  order,  and  of  democratic 
institutions,  cannot  sweep  across  Europe  and  be 
safely  checked  on  the  Eastern  shores  of  what  one 
of  the  French  delegates  to  the  Trade  Conference 
referred  to  as  the  "Atlantic  Channel." 

In  1920  it  is  more  or  less  idle  to  debate  whether 
or  not  we  should  take  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  world. 
The  fact  is  that  we  are  taking  part.  In  these  days 
when  the  food  and  raw  material  of  one  country  are 
necessary  to  feed  and  clothe  the  populations  of  an- 


260  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

other,  when  the  cotton  of  America  is  necessary  to  the 
operation  of  the  mills  of  England,  when  the  wheat  of 
America  is  needed  to  prevent  starvation  in  Europe, 
when  the  coal  of  America  and  Belgium  and  England 
is  necessary  to  maintain  the  industrial  life  of  Italy, 
when  in  a  thousand  ways  one  country  must  look  to 
another,  not  only  for  its  complete  and  well-rounded 
development,  but  indeed  for  its  very  existence,  the 
only  question  we  can  ask  ourselves  with  regard  to 
cooperation  between  nations  is  not  whether  but  how. 
It  is  an  interesting  and  very  typical  American 
situation  to  find  a  great  problem  of  this  sort  thrown 
upon  us  almost  without  warning.  Before  the  war, 
the  number  of  men  in  the  United  States  who  knew 
anything  about  foreign  banking  and  Foreign  trade 
was  comparatively  small.  A  few  of  our  great  com 
panies,  like  the  International  Harvester  Company, 
the  National  Cash  Register  Company,  and  the 
Singer  Sewing  Machine  Company,  had  an  extensive 
foreign  business,  but  previous  to  1914  the  Ameri 
can  manufactured  goods  sent  abroad  were  hardly 
more  than  ten  per  cent  of  the  total  production. 
During  the  war  this  figure  increased  to  more  than 
thirty  per  cent.  Even  today,  with  the  experience 
of  the  war  behind  us,  we  find  ourselves  with  the 
world's  major  responsibility  in  international  trade 
and  finance  and  with  comparatively  few  men  who 
have  the  technical  knowledge  necessary  to  handle 
these  problems.  Anyone  who  has  made  the  slight 
est  study  of  foreign  exchange  and  other  phases 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    261 

of  international  trade  knows  that  it  requires  gen 
erations  of  study,  experience  and  tradition  to 
develop  a  body  of  men  who  are  world  experts. 
The  British,  the  French  and  the  Belgians  have 
looked  upon  international  trade  as  one  of  the  es 
sential  features  of  their  national  existence  for 
generation  after  generation  and  have  developed  men 
who  know  international  credit  and  finance  as  the 
watchmaker  knows  the  inside  of  a  watch. 

We  cannot  accomplish  this  result  in  a  day;  and 
here  we  are  thrown  back  to  some  extent  on  our 
American  self-reliance  and  ingenuity,  on  the  frontier 
spirit,  which  is  such  a  predominant  element  in  the 
shaping  of  American  character.  It  is  not  a  question, 
therefore,  of  whether  we  are  fully  equipped  to 
handle  this  job.  It  is  a  piece  of  work  which  we  must 
handle;  and  judging  from  many  previous  American 
experiences,  men  may  be  found  who  will  accomplish 
results  which  do  not  now  seem  possible. 

Perhaps  it  is  fair  to  say  that  our  understanding 
of  the  European  character  is  easier  than  a  full  ap 
preciation  on  the  part  of  European  peoples  of  the 
essentials  of  Americanism.  On  our  part,  the  lit 
erature  we  read  as  children  expresses  the  atmos 
phere  of  European  traditions  and  institutions.  Our 
roots  are  in  the  soil  of  our  forefathers;  their  blood 
flows  in  our  veins.  Here  is  the  stuff,  certainly, 
out  of  which  understanding  can  grow.  But  how 
can  Europeans  measure  by  their  standards  the 
rapid  development  of  America,  the  continental  ex- 


262  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

perience  shaping  our  achievements  and  our  dreams? 
It  is  more  difficult;  but  it  is  not  impossible,  because 
there  is  nothing  incomprehensible  or  magical  in 
the  elements  of  American  character,  but  rather  a 
new  application  under  new  skies  of  the  qualities 
which  have  appeared  and  re-appeared  through  the 
ages  —  among  the  tribes  of  Israel,  in  Athens,  in 
Sparta,  among  the  legions  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  in 
the  armies  of  Caesar  and  the  assemblies  of  the 
Roman  Forum,  among  the  Northern  Goths  in  the 
primeval  forests  of  Germany,  among  the  Gauls, 
the  Venetians,  the  Swiss,  the  Belgians,  the  Danes, 
the  Scots  and  the  Britons. 

Wherever  men  have  had  to  contend  against  the 
ruggedness  of  nature,  the  forest,  the  prairie  or  the 
open  sea,  this  struggle  has  left  a  deep  and  lasting 
impression.  It  has  been  perhaps  the  greatest  single 
determinant  of  national  character.  On  this  is  built 
the  accomplishment  of  a  people,  influenced  by 
wars  and  invasions  and  the  interplay  of  ideas,  until 
we  see  emerging  a  national  identity,  with  a  flavor, 
an  atmosphere,  a  language,  even  a  cast  of  counte 
nance  and  a  physical  carriage,  which  distinguishes 
individuals  as  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  English, 
American. 

The  American  is  coming  to  be  understood  abroad, 
to  a  large  extent  in  France,  and  naturally,  perhaps, 
best  of  all  in  England.  There  have  recently  been 
published  three  books  by  British  authors  which  give 
evidence  of  an  appreciation  of  the  American  char- 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    263 

acter  which  is  equal  to  any  self-interpretation  we 
have  ever  achieved.  Frederick  Oliver's  Alexander 
Hamilton  analyzes  the  federal  principle  upon  which 
our  national  policy  is  based.  Col.  Henderson's 
Stonewall  Jackson  is  the  best  Civil  War  biography 
we  have;  and  the  latest  of  the  three,  Lord  Cham- 
wood's  Abraham  Lincoln  is  written  with  a  profound 
sympathy  and  insight  into  the  true  heart  of  our 
people.  It  is  hard  to  understand  how  a  foreigner 
could  have  accomplished  this  result.  Perhaps  the 
answer  is  that  the  foreign  perspective  made  it  pos 
sible.  Every  day  the  word  "foreigner"  carries  less 
and  less  of  the  old  implication  of  ignorance  and  lack 
of  appreciation  of  the  conditions  and  peoples  be- 
yond  the  four  walls  of  his  own  home.  It  is  a  further 
extension  of  the  principle  which  made  possible 
Prescott's  "Ferdinand  and  Isabella,"  Motley's 
"Dutch  Republic,"  Gibbon's  "Rome"  and  Thayer's 
"Cavour." 

But  few  strangers  have  so  fully  reached  the  heart 
of  a  land  not  their  own  as  has  Lord  Charnwood. 
In  a  recent  issue  of  the  Anglo-French  Review  he  has 
ventured  a  little  further  into  an  analysis  of  the 
American  spirit.  He  has  set  up  a  standard  of  na 
tional  character  analysis  which  challenges  those 
Americans  whose  privilege  it  may  be  in  the  future 
to  interpret  for  us  our  British  friends.  First  of  all 
the  author  defines  for  Englishmen  and  Frenchmen 
the  word  "new"  as  applied  to  America:  "I  have 
spoken  of  the  United  States  as  a  new  country.  In 


264  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

a  way  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  epithet  'new' 
so  applied  is  in  some  respects  misleading  and  ab 
surd.  The  United  States  as  a  national  power  is  of 
course  older  than  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  still  older 
than  the  late  German  Empire.  The  American 
Constitution  of  today  is  a  little  older  than  the  real 
working  British  Constitution  of  today,  however 
much  the  antiquity  of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons, 
severally,  may  disguise  this  fact.  The  American 
nation  moreover  has  by  now  a  sufficient  length  of 
history  behind  it  —  of  history  peculiarly  rich  in 
romance,  in  dramatic  events,  and  in  heroic  figures 
-  to  do  away  with  any  sense  on  the  part  of  others 
that  its  life  lacks  the  background  of  antiquity,  and 
if  it  lives  in  a  constant  state  of  transition,  so  too  is 
it  with  ourselves.  But  in  one  sense  the  word  'new' 
applied  to  the  United  States  stands  for  an  important 
fact  —  a  fact  common  to  them  and  to  the  Overseas 
Dominions.  Their  political  and  social  community 
was  the  creation  of  a  number  of  men  who  came  to 
gether  in  a  field  theretofore  untrodden  by  their 
race,  steeped  as  individuals  in  the  traditions  of  an 
older  community,  but  surrounded,  then  and  thence 
forward  to  this  day,  by  circumstances  wholly  unlike 
those  which  have  ever  prevailed  in  any  country  of 
Europe.  Therefore,  the  untraveled  Englishman  or 
Frenchman  who  wishes  to  understand  America 
must  once  for  all  imagine  vividly  the  difference  of 
circumstances  which  all  along  has  governed  or  con 
ditioned  the  development  of  America.'* 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    265 

Lord  Charnwood  goes  on  to  analyze  some  of  the 
elements  which  peculiarly  contributed  to  form  the 
American  character,  and  refers  first  of  all  to  the 
influence  of  the  frontier:  "Among  those  conditions 
of  American  life  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  the 
most  important  historically  is  the  persistent  in 
fluence  of  the  frontier.  It  is  easy  for  English 
people  to  imagine  individual  life  on  the  confines  of 
civilization,  since  the  British  Empire  has  more 
frontiers  to  it  than  any  other  state  that  ever  existed, 
but,  living  as  we  normally  do  in  this  crowded  and 
fully  developed  island,  it  needs  effort  for  us  to 
realize  the  collective  effect  of  this  condition  upon 
a  society  of  which,  from  the  beginning  till  a  very 
recent  date,  a  large  and  very  vigorous  portion  has 
lived  upon  what  still  was,  or  had  been  yesterday, 
the  frontier.  Frontier  life  involved  a  certain  en 
forced  equality;  it  meant  for  all,  prevalent  hard 
ships  and  frequent  calls  upon  resourcefulness  and 
exertion;  it  meant  for  the  great  mass,  the  fair  prom 
ise  of  solid  prosperity;  for  a  considerable  number, 
the  chance  of  enormous  gains,  or  of  a  corresponding 
failure  which  had  in  it  a  certain  element  of  pictur- 
esqueness  or  romance.  It  meant  a  high  standard  of 
individual  independence  and  competence,  a  general 
indifference  to  a  government  which,  as  a  rule,  was 
apt  to  be  remote  and  only  spasmodically  efficient, 
but  it  meant  too,  in  the  presence  of  occasional 
danger,  the  power  of  sudden,  irresistible,  and  some 
times  tyrannical  combination. 


266  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

"It  meant  the  tolerance  of  much  that  was  both 
novel  and  crude,  and  the  slightly  unreasonable 
veneration  of  such  established  things  as  could  be 
conserved.  It  involved  that  preoccupation  of  the 
strongest  minds  and  of  the  public  generally  with 
problems  which  could  be  stated  in  dollars,  which 
resulted  in  the  delusive  phenomenon  once  known 
both  in  America  and  in  Europe  as  American  ma 
terialism.  In  a  thousand  particulars  it  carried  with 
it  what  may  be  best  described  as  the  absence  of  a 
high  general  standard  in  judging  of  all  sorts  of 
things,  from  a  steam  engine  to  a  sermon,  and  from 
a  boiled  egg  to  a  poem. 

"And  all  the  while  it  preserved,  and  in  preserv 
ing  continuously  developed,  high  types  of  manhood 
and  of  womanhood,  cherishing  *  things  true,  pure, 
lovely  and  of  good  report/  not  less  discerningly 
than  was  common  with  us,  nor  any  less  passionately, 
but  probably  more  so. 

"It  would  not  be  very  hard  in  a  lengthy  treatise 
to  exhibit  the  surprising  potency  of  this  frontier 
influence  and  of  other  influences  —  more  especially 
that  of  vast  distances  —  which  can  barely  be 
glanced  at  here.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  though 
frontier  life  has  gone,  other  influences  somewhat 
analogous  continue  or  even  increase.  America  is 
still  a  country  with  vast  resources  very  imperfectly 
developed.  It  is  still  a  country  whose  settled  in 
habitants  (with  several  generations  of  American 
citizenship  behind  them)  are  incessantly  being  in- 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    267 

vaded  by  immigrant  hordes,  formerly  of  a  stock 
not  widely  remote  from  their  own,  latterly  of  every 
people,  nation,  and  language  in  Europe.  The 
problem,  present  from  the  first,  has  become  of  late 
more  difficult  than  ever  —  that  of  digesting  into 
the  American  Commonwealth,  when  its  own  life 
had  hardly  yet  taken  settled  shape,  these  huge 
alien  masses.  To  realize  the  difficulties  with  which 
the  now  great  nation  has  had  to  wrestle  in  its  growth, 
is  to  feel  at  once  that  what  have  been  reckoned  as 
its  glaring  defects  are  natural;  but  it  is  a  good  deal 
more.  It  is  to  begin  to  see  in  them  something  very 
insignificant,  and  to  see  in  the  building  of  the 
American  nation  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
cheerful  pages  in  human  history." 

The  article  concludes  with  an  estimate  of  the 
greatness  of  America  and  an  appraisal  of  the  ele 
ments  of  danger  to  civilization  which  may  lurk 
behind  it:  "America  as  a  nation  has  a  peculiar 
greatness  quite  other  than  that  which  the  untraveled 
Englishman  or  Frenchman  would  impute  to  it. 
It  is  not  solely  the  greatness  of  mechanical  and 
business  efficiency  —  indeed  in  these  respects  Ameri 
cans  may  not  be  so  eminent  as  we  often  suppose  — 
but  it  is  that  of  a  country  in  which  quiet  but  strenu 
ously  devoted  movement  in  all  the  more  important 
directions  of  progress  —  moral,  intellectual,  in  a 
word  spiritual  —  is  more  widely  stirring  than  it 
appears  to  be  in  any  other  country  of  the  world. 
It  matters  relatively  little  that  few  American  places 


268  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

of  learning  have  quite  the  standard  of  general  at 
tainment  which  exists  in  the  universities  of  the 
Old  World  (or  perhaps  those  of  Canada);  it  matters 
much  that  they  are  s  riving  after  it,  that  meanwhile 
a  vastly  greater  proportion  of  their  people  come 
within  the  influence  of  learning,  and  that  an  unusual 
harmony  between  the  liberal  and  the  merely  techni 
cal  studies  is  beginning  to  appear.  It  matters 
little  that  snobs  and  nouveaux  riches  are  as  common 
and  conspicuous  in  America  as  with  us;  it  matters 
much  that  over  far  the  greater  part  of  the  country 
there  prevails  a  greater  equality  and  ease  of  ap 
proach  between  man  and  man,  based  on  self-respect 
and  respect  for  others,  than  in  any  other  large 
human  society.  The  puzzling  peculiarities  of  Ameri 
can  politics  matter  little  beside  the  relative  security 
that,  in  the  long  run  and  in  the  largest  matters, 
'the  common  sense  of  most'  is  going  to  prevail. 
It  matters  little  that  there  lingers  in  America  a 
certain  flavor  of  cant  of  which  the  excessive  itera 
tion  of  the  world  'idealism'  may  seem  to  Europeans 
symptomatic;  it  matters  much  that  the  aspiration 
to  build  a  new  human  society  founded  on  human 
right  was  genuinely  present  with  the  chief  of  the 
American  '  fathers,'  that  it  never  quite  died  out,  and 
possesses  probably  a  more  sane  and  powerful  driv 
ing  force  today  than  ever  before. 

"Our  impoverished  peoples  may  look  with  a 
certain  natural  repining  on  the  dominant  position 
which  for  the  future  seems  assured  to  the  nation 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    269 

which  entered  last  into  the  fight  for  human  right 
and,  however  devotedly  it  entered,  emerged  from 
it  hardly  scathed.  But  is  the  huge  power  which  for 
a  while  at  least  resides  in  that  nation  a  menace  to 
the  world,  as  German  power  was  and  as  French 
and  even  Eng  ish  power  has  at  times  seemed  likely 
to  become?  It  needs  but  little  acquaintance  with 
America  to  assure  us  that  about  that  we  need  not 
worry  ourselves  at  all.  The  country  of  which  this 
can  be  said  is  entitled  to  pride  itself  on  a  hitherto 
unexampled  form  of  glory,  due  indeed  in  great 
measure  to  the  singularly  favoring  circumstances 
under  which  it  has  growrn,  but  due  none  the  less  to 
the  persistent  cherishing  by  faithful  persons  in 
America  of  a  great  tradition." 

In  these  words,  indeed,  we  may  have  the  keen 
satisfaction  of  seeing  ourselves  as  others  see  us. 
This  student  from  overseas  has  perceived  in  the 
vastness  of  America  a  clear,  definable  and  univer 
sally  comprehensible  element  which  he  can  interpret 
to  the  world.  We  know  it  as  Americanism.  It  is 
a  basic  love  of  the  square  deal,  of  fair  play;  it  is  a 
love,  sometimes  submerged  in  the  show  and  bustle 
of  twentieth  century  achievement,  of  rugged  sim 
plicity  both  of  living  and  of  character.  It  is  a  de 
sire  to  "get  the  facts,"  to  get  at  the  heart  of  things. 
It  is  a  conviction  that  our  institutions  are  sound, 
and  sufficiently  elastic  to  be  adapted  to  all  the  de 
mands  of  a  changing  world.  We  have  no  monopoly 
of  these  qualities^  but  we  as  a  people  are  fortunate 


270  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

in  having  lived  through  a  century  during  which 
these  qualities  were  essential  to  the  very  existence 
of  our  race.  Insofar,  therefore,  as  we  can  apply 
these  principles  in  the  new  era  to  our  own  domestic 
problems  of  capital  and  labor  and  to  other  vital 
issues  of  the  day,  we  may  well  expect  to  have  dem 
onstrated  the  right  of  the  word  American  to  take 
its  place  in  history  beside  the  word  Greek  as  connot 
ing  something  eternal,  something  more  enduring  in 
the  progress  of  human  happiness  than  the  greatest 
railway  system  or  the  tallest  building  in  theSworld. 

It  is  true  that  the  tradition  of  America  has  been 
one  of  great  material  achievement  and  activity. 
But  it  is  not  a  tradition  of  selfishness.  Our  people 
have  been  deeply  patriotic,  but  they  have  opened 
their  gates  as  no  other  nation  in  recorded  history 
has  done  to  the  peoples  of  the  world  flocking  in 
millions  to  enjoy  our  freedom  and  opportunity. 
Our  Americanism  arouses  itself  at  the  first  provoca 
tion  to  defend  its  essential  elements  from  destructive 
anarchy  or  weak  internationalism,  both  of  which 
would  let  every  drop  of  red  blood  out  of  the  veins 
of  the  national  body  politic.  But  because  a  man 
has  a  deep  love  for  his  own  family,  does  this  preclude 
his  living  in  peace  and  friendly  and  active  coopera 
tion  with  his  neighbors  ? 

In  this  connection  we  may  recall  once  more  the 
words  of  Lincoln:  "It  was  the  sentiment  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty 
not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country  but,  I 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    271 

hope,  to  the  world  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that 
which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time  the  weight 
should  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men." 
Does  not  even  our  most  intense  nationalism  lead 
naturally  and  inevitably  toward  the  full  participa 
tion  by  a  vigorous  and  united  people  in  the  affairs 
of  a  world  closely  bound  together  by  constantly 
strengthening  ties  of  opportunity  and  responsibility? 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  when  America  was 
drawn  into  world  affairs  in  1917,  the  majority  of 
our  people  had  not  quite  adapted  themselves  to  this 
step.  It  was  undertaken  as  a  necessity  and  under 
the  stress  of  enthusiasm  and  did  not  at  first  have 
back  of  it  the  stimulus  and  support  of  the  mind 
as  well  as  the  support  of  sentiment.  Now  that  the 
war  is  over,  many  Americans  are  falling  an  easy 
prey  to  a  doctrine  of  "America  First,"  which  has 
a  very  definite  implication  of  "America  Only." 
The  natural  reaction  from  a  sudden  and  tremendous 
plunge  into  international  affairs  has  made  some  of 
us  susceptible  to  arguments  of  a  distinctly  pro 
vincial  character. 

This  is  not  a  matter  for  bitterness,  because  those 
who  would  have  us  seek  safety  and  quiet  in  our 
own  house,  and  slam  the  door  in  the  face  of  the  world, 
are  appealing  to  a  very  human  element  in  our 
character.  But  on  a  basis  of  fact  it  must  be  clear 
that  the  modern  economic  structure  is  international 
in  scope.  Politically  we  cannot  remain  comfort 
ably  isolated  even  if  we  desire  to.  Not  only  the 


272  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

history  of  the  recent  war  but  the  entire  course  of 
American  history  indicate  that  this  nation  cannot 
live  a  purely  self-centered  existence.  Peace  among 
individuals  or  nations  is  not  to  be  built  upon  isola 
tion  and  lack  of  reciprocity. 

An  appeal  has  been  made,  no  doubt  in  good 
faith,  to  the  rugged  Americanism  of  the  era  of  de 
mocracy  and  the  opening  of  the  West,  and  it  is 
implied  that  in  the  years  following  the  Revolution, 
Americans  committed  themselves  to  a  policy  of 
isolation  from  all  European  contacts,  that  as  the 
nation  swept  westward  it  left  farther  and  farther 
behind  any  community  of  interest,  spiritual  or 
material,  with  Europe.  Professor  Turner  has  been 
asked  to  interpret  the  present  situation  from  a 
historical  point  of  view.  His  analysis  is  of  sufficient 
significance  to  merit  wider  distribution  than  is 
possible  in  personal  correspondence,  and  is  printed 
here  with  his  permission. 

After  dwelling  on  the  impossibility  of  a  purely 
selfish  nationalism  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
world,  he  writes,  "The  Western  movement,  as  I  see 
it,  contained  at  least  two  factors  that  affect  the 
problem.  One  is  the  obvious,  but  in  the  long  run, 
superficial  and  secondary  fact,  that  it  took  our 
attention  away  from  world  problems  during  the 
period  between  1815  and  the  end  of  the  iQth  century 
especially,  and  centered  our  interest  and  our  efforts 
upon  colonizing  and  developing  our  own  back 
country,  with  a  resultant  self-contained  economic 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    273 

and  political  life,  self-sufficing  during  that  period. 
But  there  was,  even  in  those  years,  much  more 
European  influence  seeping  in,  by  immigration,  by 
the  inflow  of  ideas,  by  economic  currents,  thaji  is 
sometimes  realized. 

"However,  from  a  narrow  viewpoint  this  factor 
tended  to  emphasize  the  ideal  of  continuous  isola 
tion,  as  a  Western  conception;  although  even  while 
we  held  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  objected  to 
the  use  of  European  experience,  we  at  times  grew 
enthusiastic  over  carrying  American  ideals  of  de 
mocracy  and  freedom  to  Europe,  as  witness  the 
agitation  of  "Young  America"  in  the  days  of  the 
Revolution  of  1848,  a  movement  in  which  Douglas's 
name  was  prominent.  There  are  many  other  evi 
dences  that  Western  expansion  ideals  were  not 
narrow. 

"The  other  factor  was  that  of  change,  of  adapta 
tion  of  old  institutions  and  ideals  to  new  conditions. 
The  West  was  ready  to  '  try  anything  once/  It  wasn't 
bound  by  hard  and  fast  traditions  and  conventions. 
It  looked  forward  to  new  and  broader  creations  in 
society  and  the  state,  and  it  conceived  of  itself 
as  a  part  of  the  process  of  making  a  better  humanity. 
These  two  aspects  of  the  matter,  —  the  responsive 
ness  to  innovation,  and  the  courageous  ideal  of  in 
fusing  American  conceptions  into  the  world  order  — 
both  work  for  acceptance  of  the  great  experiment  of 
a  League  of  Nations. 

"Some  leaders  today  act  on  the  old-time  prin- 


274  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

ciples  of  the  sectional  Federalists,  who  distrusted 
American  power  to  introduce  a  new  system,  who 
based  their  action  upon  sectional  and  class  preju 
dices.  'Innovation'  always  spelled  with  a  capital 
'I,'  and  figured  as  'Stalking'  was  a  dangerous 
thing  to  them.  Their  conservatism  was  more  than 
the  reasonable  opposition  to  revolutionary  destruc- 
tiveness;  it  was  distrust  of  America's  own  power  to 
make  contributions  and  to  play  a  part  among  th^ 
nations  of  the  earth,  standing  as  an  equal  amon;* 
equals.  It  was  colonial  timidity  as  much  as  it  was 
provincial  pride. 

"The  frontier  worked  both  to  create  a  new  and 
broader  American  conception  of  society  and  of  ths 
dignity  and  possibility  of  the  common  man,  and  it 
worked  toward  a  readiness  to  adjust  itself  to  new 
conditions  and  a  courageousness  in  applying  and 
extending  American  ideals.  Having  occupied  the 
continent  the  next  logical  step  was  to  transfer  the 
movement  of  the  American  frontier  to  the  larger 
area  of  world  ideals  and  world  intercourse,  without 
undue  timidity  in  respect  to  America's  capacity  to 
participate  in  the  reconstructive  process. 

"Personally  I  have  always  felt  that  unless  the 
League  developed  beyond  its  present  form  it  would 
fail  of  its  largest  usefulness,  precisely  as  our  Union 
would  have  failed  if  it  had  relied  upon  diplomatic 
councils  instead  of  legislative  action  by  chosen  repre 
sentatives  of  the  people,  with  parties  behind  the 
leaders,  —  parties  which  in  composition  ajid  in- 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    275 

terests  ran  across  sections.  In  America  our  party 
system  has  been  like  a  rubber  band,  flexible  enough 
to  respond  to  sectional  or  state  interests,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  steadily  pulled  together  for  national 
concert  of  action. 

"In  the  present  international  situation  there  is  an 
unrepresented  body  of  common  interests  among  the 
mass  of  people  in  all  these  countries,  and  a  dislike 
of  war.  The  foundations  of  the  old  order  are 
giving  way  to  new  social  construction.  The  League 
doesn't  give  sufficient  opportunity  for  the  play  of 
these  new  forces.  The  forces  are  perfectly  con 
sistent  with  adequate  recognition  of  separate  na 
tional  interests.  In  the  play  between  the  forces  of 
nationalism  and  social  sympathy  on  an  international 
scale  will  be  the  opportunity  for  the  preservation 
of  a  balanced  liberty.  If  the  Western  experience 
taught  anything  it  was  the  possibility  of  progress 
by  adjustments,  by  compromise  and  mutual  con 
cession,  by  open-mindedness  toward  social  and 
political  experimentation,  by  the  creative  rather 
than  the  crystallizing  processes. 

"The  League  is  the  half-loaf.  The  whole  loaf 
isn't  yet  obtainable  —  but  with  what  it  contains  we 
can  develop  it  in  response  to  changing  conditions. 
The  alternative  is  a  world  of  warring  nations  and 
classes." 

The  freedom  of  American  life  is  a  heritage  which 
can  safely  be  shared  with  peoples  whose  opportunity 
for  self-realization  has  not  been  equal  to  our  own. 


276  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

They  are  looking  to  us  today,  not  simply  to  bask 
in  our  good  fortune,  but  to  discharge  a  public  service 
to  mankind.  The  war  has  left  us  the  trustee  for 
the  aspiration  of  the  world,  as  well  as  for  the  sanity 
of  the  world.  Endless  instances  could  be  cited  of 
disinterested  foreign  opinion  emphasizing  this  view 
point.  One  of  the  most  recent  is  copied  here  from 
a  brief  address  made  by  Mr.  Wilhelm  Morgenstierne, 
formerly  of  the  Norwegian  Legation  in  Washing 
ton  who  understands  and  loves  America,  who 
knows  us  because  he  has  lived  for  years  in  our  cities 
and  traveled  on  foot  over  much  of  our  most  char 
acteristic  country.  He  says: 

"What  is  the  essence  of  this  American  spirit? 

"We  see  it,  we  feel  its  presence  everywhere  we  go 
in  the  United  States,  —  even  we  who  are  perhaps 
only  visitors  of  a  short  time. 

"I  shall  not  here  try  to  undertake  any  analysis: 
—  but  is  it  not  true  that  we  all  have  a  feeling  of  the 
promise  of  American  life?  Is  not  this  American 
spirit  a  spirit  of  optimism,  of  confident  faith  in  the 
ultimate  destinies  of  the  human  race,  —  and  of  the 
American  people  in  particular?  I  think  that  per 
haps  we  shall  realize  this  more  clearly  when  we  coji- 
sider  the  future. 

"America,  —  does  it  not  stand  in  our  imagSrration 
intimately  bound  up  with  the  future  of  the  world? 
Can  we  conceive  of  that  future  without  America  ?  - 

"We  have  gone  through  a  terrible  experience. 
The  foundations  of  civilization  have  been  shaken 


AMERICAN  SPIRIT  IN  WORLD  AFFAIRS    277 

and  we  are  groping  in  the  dark.  It  seems  hard  to 
find  our  bearings.  But  we  all  feel  this,  that  if  the 
nations  of  the  world  are  to  endure,  the  near  future 
must  see  a  radical  and  far-reaching  extension  of  the 
principles  of  equality  and  liberty. 

"And  so  we  all  turn  our  eyes  Westward  and  we 
get  the  vision  of  a  vast  and  wonderful  country 
stretching  in  tremendous  expanse  from  ocean  to 
ocean,  with  the  intense,  hustling  life  of  its  great 
cities,  the  vastness  and  the  desolation  of  its  prairies, 
the  towering  beauty  of  its  mountains  and  the 
majesty  of  its  forests.  We  have  seen  it,  —  and  it 
has  become  part  of  us,  —  and  we  love  it. 

"The  world  is  waiting  breathlessly  for  leadership. 
And  millions  in  all  lands  look  West,  to  the  nation 
dedicated  to  the  high  principles  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  to  take  the  lead.  Will  she  do  it? 
Many,  many  are  those  who  fondly  hope  that  she 
will,  that  she  will  show  the  way  in  carrying  to  their 
just  and  necessary  —  and  tremendously  difficult  — 
conclusion,  the  great  living  ideals  of  equality  and 
liberty/' 

This  is  a  summons  we  cannot  ignore.  It  is  not 
inconsistent  with  "the  persistent  cherishing  by 
faithful  persons  in  America  of  a  great  tradition/' 
The  tradition  of  America  has  been  as  broad  as 
civilization  itself.  The  blood  of  a  score  of  races 
runs  in  our  veins.  We  are  an  integral  and  insep 
arable  part  of  the  progress  of  the  world.  We  can 
not  hope  to  amalgamate  the  millions  who  have 


278  THE  NEW. FRONTIER 

come  to  us  from  other  lands  unless  we  make  a  place 
in  our  national  policy  for  a  deep  interest  in  the  wel 
fare  and  happiness  of  the  neighbors  overseas  with 
whom  we  fought  side  by  side,  with  whom  we  are 
entering  a  vast  friendly  commercial  rivalry,  who 
cannot  suffer  without  influencing  us  deeply. 

In  days  of  stress  there  comes  a  weariness  of  the 
spirit,  and  with  it  a  longing  for  the  simpler  days 
and  less  intricate  problems  of  our  young  and  more 
isolated  republic.  But  the  world  has  grown  and 
we  have  grown  with  it.  Its  problems  challenge  us, 
and  our  answer  comes  inevitably  out  of  a  bold  and 
courageous  past  which  never  hesitated  to  meet  m 
problems  more  than  halfway.  There  are  no  desert 
sands  in  America  for  ostriches  to  hide  their  head^ 
in.  We  are  ready  to  face  the  world  we  live  in,  and 
meet  face  to  face  whatever  sacrifice  the  future  may 
have  in  store.  If  we  attempt  with  words  to  deny 
the  existence  of  a  world  problem,  if  we  do  not  go 
forward  valiantly  to  play  our  part  as  a  strong,  in 
dividual  and  self-reliant  nation,  the  tide  of  affairs 
in  its  inexorable  advance  will  overwhelm  us. 

We  must  build  a  stronger  America  not  for  selfish 
ness  but  for  service.  That  is  our  task  today.  It  is 
essentially  a  patriotic  task.  It  may  prove  to  be  the 
basis  of  the  continued  existence  of  the  institutions 
and  the  traditions  for  which  our  fathers  lived  and 
died,  which  we  have  too  often  taken  for  granted, 
but  which  deep  down  in  our  hearts  we,  too,  love  — 
for  which  if  need  be  we,  too,  will  die. 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

THE  frontier  played  a  significant  part  in  our 
history.  It  was  not  the  only  vital  influence  in  the 
shaping  of  the  American  nation  and  the  character 
of  our  people;  but  it  was  a  fundamental  influence, 
and  one  easil  comprehended.  The  more  subtle  and 
controversial  elements  in  our  annals  are  hardly 
useful  as  guides  and  sources  of  inspiration  to  the 
average  man. 

This  influence  has  been  emphasized  here  because 
in  actual  experience  over  a  period  of  years  it  has 
proved  to  be  increasingly  absorbing  and  practically 
helpful.  It  appears  in  daily  life  in  a  surprising 
variety  of  forms.  It  serves  to  explain  much  in 
the  current  affairs  of  the  country  which  would 
otherwise  be  incomprehensible. 

In  approaching  the  problems  of  each  succeeding 
day  we  in  America  need  not  be  without  precedents, 
although  the  precedents  are  not  specific  as  to  detail. 
The  new  day  presents  its  difficulties  in  ever  fresh 
disguises,  but  the  fundamentals  are  the  same  as 
those  in  which  our  fathers  trusted.  The  spirit  of 
self-reliance  and  abounding  optimism,  which  brought 
success  to  them  may  help  to  bring  success  to  us. 
Our  youth  should  know  this.  A  man  who  leaves 

279 


280  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

an  American  school  or  college  today  without  a  deep 
pride  in  his  country,  a  firm  confidence  in  the  part 
he  is  to  play  in  its  future,  lacks  perhaps  the  greatest 
asset  of  a  worker  in  the  broader  field  of  business 
or  public  life. 

This  spirit,  which  we  have  chosen  to  associate 
with  the  frontier,  which  we  refer  to  as  liberal  or 
practical  in  its  contact  with  the  work  of  the  world, 
is,  in  practice,  the  effective  result-getting  spirit  in 
the  arena  of  active  affairs.  It  is  not  the  only 
manifestation  of  Americanism.  It  happens  to  be 
a  fact  that  our  ancestors,  on  a  series  of  perplexing 
frontiers,  were  confronted  by  an  intensely  material 
problem.  The  spirit  of  the  modern  frontier  naturally 
inherits  much  of  the  temperament  and  tendency  of 
its  predecessors,  but  it  has  absorbed  much  besides. 
Because  it  is,  like  the  old  frontier,  keenly  conscious 
of  its  surroundings,  wide  and  catholic  in  its  contacts, 
there  are  many  aspects  of  our  modern  problem  which 
had  no  counterpart  in  the  life  on  the  Ohio  or  in 
the  forests  of  Kentucky. 

And  yet  the  spirit  is  the  same.  A  struggling 
artist  with  a  vision  can  put  the  same  resolution  and 
self-confidence  into  his  work  as  the  pioneer  in  a 
prairie  schooner  slowly  creeping  toward  the  West. 
The  musician,  the  poet,  the  diplomat,  the  politician, 
the  teacher,  the  clergyman,  may  find  the  same 
source  of  inspiration  in  this  record  of  stern  sacri 
fice  and  noble  achievement  as  can  the  banker  or 
the  business  man  or  the  farmer  whose  customary 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  281 

objectives  are  more  closely  akin  to  those  of  the 
men  of  the  Western  waters. 

This  is  the  important  point.  In  a  discussion  of 
this  sort  no  attempt  can  be  made  to  analyze  in 
detail  American  institutions  or  their  history.  But 
the  experience  of  most  young  men  is  that  they  can 
get  the  facts  if  they  once  have  a  purpose  in  mind  to 
which  to  apply  the  facts.  The  objective,  the  spirit 
of  achievement  —  these  are  the  great  things.  Some 
critics  have  said  that  one  of  the  outstanding  dif 
ficulties  with  the  organization  of  industry  and 
political  society  today  is  the  very  fact  that,  with  a 
growing  popular  intelligence,  too  few  people  have 
been  taught  the  true  objects  of  industry,  or  the 
true  goal  of  political  effort.  Hence  their  work  is 
too  often  formal  and  spiritless. 

It  is  manifestly  impossible  to  expect  every  unit  in 
a  great  organization  to  know  its  purposes  in  detail. 
But  in  a  broad  way  the  underlying  purposes,  and 
the  spirit  in  which  those  purposes  are  being  sought, 
can  be  comprehended  by  all.  If  these  are  under 
stood,  if  the  leadership  inspi  es  respect,  and  the  goal 
is  one  toward  which  men  can  work  with  confidence, 
a  basis  is  established  for  that  same  cheerful,  and 
irresistible,  progress  of  the  doughboys  in  France  who 
sang  "We  don't  know  where  we're  going,  but  we're 
on  our  way."  In  other  words,  what  we  are  aiming  at 
is  a  development  of  a  stronger  national  morale  by 
teaching  the  average  soldier  of  peace  what  he  is  fight 
ing  for,  and  not  simply  teaching  him  to  obey  orders. 


282  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  machinery  of  organization  and  government 
cannot  control  the  hearts  of  men.  At  best  it  can 
inspire  their  loyalty.  At  worst  it  can  kill  most  of 
their  natural  aspiration  and  destroy  that  individu 
ality  which  must  always  remain  the  chief  attribute 
of  sentient  beings.  The  essence  of  the  old  frontier 
was  its  intense  individualism.  If  we  have  in 
herited  anything  of  the  traditions  of  the  pioneers 
we  have  inherited  that.  We  must  preserve  it. 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  the  most  individualistic  of 
American  thinkers,  has  left  us  in. his  essays  a  last 
ing  interpretation  of  this  element  of  character. 
"O  rich  and  various  Man!"  he  says,  "thou  palace 
of  sight  and  sound,  carrying  in  thy  senses  the 
morning  and  the  night  and  the  unfathomable 
galaxy;  in  thy  brain  the  geometry  of  the  city  of 
God;  in  thy  heart  the  bower  of  love  and  the  realms 
of  right  and  wrong." 

Commenting  upon  this  passage,  William  James 
said,  in  an  address  delivered  in  Concord  at  the 
centenary  of  the  birth  of  Emerson: 

"If  the  individual  opens  thus  directly  into  the 
Absolute,  it  follows  that  there  is  something  in  each 
and  all  of  us,  even  the  lowliest,  that  ought  not  to 
consent  to  borrowing  traditions  and  living  at  second 
hand.  'If  John  was  perfect,  why  are  you  and  I 
alive?'  Emerson  writes.  'As  long  as  any  man  exists 
there  is  some  need  of  him;  let  him  fight  for  his  own/ 
This  faith  that  in  a  life  at  first  hand  there  is  some 
thing  sacred  is  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  note 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  283 

in  Emerson's  writings.  The  hottest  side  of  him  is 
this  non-conformist  persuasion,  and  if  his  temper 
could  ever  verge  on  common  irascibility,  it  would 
be  by  reason  of  the  passionate  character  of  his 
feelings  on  this  point.  The  world  is  still  new  and 
untried.  In  seeing  freshly,  and  not  in  hearing  of 
what  others  saw,  shall  a  man  find  what  truth  is. 
'Each  one  of  us  can  bask  in  the  great  morning  which 
rises  out  of  the  Eastern  Sea,  and  be  himself  one  of 
the  children  of  the  light.  'Trust  thyself,  every 
heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string/  There  is  a  time 
in  each  man's  education  when  he  must  arrive  at 
the  conviction  that  imitation  is  suicide;  when  he 
must  take  himself  for  better  or  worse  as  his  portion; 
and  know  that  though  the  wide  universe  is  full  of 
good,  no  kernel  of  nourishing  corn  can  come  to  him 
but  through  his  toil  bestowed  on  that  plot  of  ground 
which  it  was  given  him  to  till." 

This  does  not  mean  that  all  individuals  are  equal 
in  strength  or  ability.  It  does  not  discard  the 
selective  processes  which  produce  leadership  among 
men.  "His  optimism,"  continues  William  James, 
"had  nothing  in  common  with  that  indiscriminate 
hurrahing  for  the  Universe  with  which  Walt  Whit 
man  has  made  us  familiar.  For  Emerson,  the  in 
dividual  fact  and  moment  were  indeed  suffused 
with  absolute  radiance,  but  it  was  upon  a  condition 
that  saved  the  situation  —  they  must  be  worthy 
specimens  —  sincere,  authentic.  ..." 

The  individual  then  is  our  unit  of  discussion. 


284  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

The  next  step  brings  us  to  the  leader  who  has  worked 
his  way  out  of  the  basic  equality  of  men  by  avail 
ing  himself  of  the  existence  of  opportunity.  And 
opportunity  is  established  by  organization,  by  gov 
ernment.  The  protection  of  mankind  from  the 
predatory  few  who  appear  in  every  age  is  the  duty 
of  organized  society.  We  have  seen  that  the 
American  pioneers  almost  immediately  began  to 
organize  the  simple  processes  of  government  in  the 
Western  wilderness,  for  mutual  protection,  and 
inspired  by  loyalty  to  one  another  and  to  a  common 
ideal. 

Government,  then,  involves  the  restriction  of  the 
freedom  of  action  of  the  individual  as  a  basis  of  the 
ordered  liberty  upon  whom  our  scheme  of  society 
rests.  The  question  is,  therefore,  how  far  this  re 
striction  should  go.  The  answer  of  autocracy  is 
that  the  average  individual  must  surrender  practi 
cally  all  initiative  in  order  that  a  wiser  individual 
may  rule  him  with  unrestricted  authority,  pre 
sumably  for  the  general  good.  The  answer  of 
democracy  is  that  the  average  individual  must 
yield,  to  a  government  of  laws  rather  than  of  men, 
just  that  amount  of  freedom  of  action  which  the 
common  good  demands.  , 

The  answer  of  democracy  is  the  answer  of  America. 
The  rule  is  a  variable  one.  It  is  a  problem  which 
will  never  be  permanently  solved,  because  it  con 
tinuously  involves,  under  widely  varying  conditions, 
the  application  of  human  judgment  and  discretion. 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  285 

But  its  challenge  is  typically  American,  typically 
liberal  in  the  method  which  must  be  applied  to  its 
solution.  To  quote  again  the  words  of  Professor 
Turner: 

"Legislation  is  taking  the  place  of  the  free  lance 
as  the  means  of  preserving  the  ideal  of  democracy, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  is  endangering  the  other 
pioneer  idea  of  creative  and  competitive  individual 
ism.  Both  were  essential,  and  constituted  what  was 
best  in  America's  contribution  to  history  and  to 
progress.  Both  must  be  preserved  if  the  nation 
would  be  true  to  its  best  and  would  fulfil  its  highest 
destiny." 

The  position  of  the  liberal  in  meeting  the  prob 
lem  of  adjusting  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  the 
rights  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  is  paramount.  He 
alone  can  maintain  a  balance  which  will  insure 
progress. 

Perhaps  the  next  challenge  to  liberal  patience  and 
ingenuity  on  the  modern  frontier  is  to  construct 
a  working  policy,  not  as  between  the  individual  and 
the  nation,  but  between  this  nation  and  the  world. 
The  liberal  will  doubtless  begin  with  the  premise 
that  his  own  nation  must  first  be  strong,  just  as 
he  assumes  that  the  individual  unit  within  the  nation 
must  be  strong.  He  will  insist  on  the  patriotic 
education  of  the  rising  generation,  and  the  Ameri 
canization  of  the  foreign-born  elements  in  our 
society.  In  the  process  of  educating  our  youth  and 
our  new  Americans  from  over-seas  one  lesson  will 


286  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

include  Edward  Everett  Male's  "The  Man  without 
a  Country."  Perhaps  no  story  ever  written  brings 
out  more  strongly  that  element  in  patriotism  which 
stirs  the  human  heart.  The  internationalists  have 
no  substitute  to  offer  for  love  of  country.  Their 
conception  is  largely  intellectual  in  its  appeal;  or, 
if  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  alsoiin  the  conception 
of  the  political  brotherhood  of  man,  a  sentiment  of 
human  sympathy,  it  must  still  appear  to  be  such  a 
broad  and  impersonal  sentiment,  so  lacking  in 
specific  and  conceivable  qualities,  so  foreign  to  all 
the  warmth  and  concreteness  of  the  love  of  one's 
own  country,  that  it  must  always  lack  the  power  to 
stir  the  mass  of  men  and  women  to  sacrifice,  to 
loyalty,  to  common  action  in  a  common  cause. 

As  nations  expand  and  populations  multiply  it 
is  increasingly  difficult  to  preserve  the  nationalistic 
ideal.  As  America  has  spread  over  the  greater 
part  of  a  continent  it  has  required  skill  and  vision 
to  preserve  its  integrity.  The  centrifugal  tendency 
is  constantly  re-asserting  itself  among  groups  of 
men,  and  it  must  be  constantly  offset  by  an  em 
phasis  upon  the  sound  and  eternal  impulses  toward 
human  coordination  and  unity.  The  thirteen  colo 
nies  did  not  come  together  naturally  and  inevitably. 
They  were  bound  together  by  the  genius  of  a  few 
far-sighted  men.  Later  the  addition  of  Louisiana 
to  the  growing  nation  was  vigorously  opposed; 
and  without  the  clear  conception,  on  the  part  of  a 
few,  of  our  "manifest  destiny"  California  would 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  287 

not  today  be  under  the  American  flag.  But  for 
the  genius  of  Lincoln  the  nation  might  have  re 
mained  divided  forever. 

Our  problem  today  is  no  less  difficult.  The 
peoples  of  the  world  have  been  brought  closer  to 
gether  by  the  steady  improvement  in  the  means  of_ 
communication.  (The  interchange  of  ideas  is  con 
stant  and  rapid.  This  condition  renders  easy  the 
contacts  of  groups  and  classes  the  world  over,  and 
forms  a  basis,  for  example,  for  dreams  of  interna 
tional  labor  alliances  cutting  across  the  lines  of 
nationality.  This  tendency  cannot  be  counter 
acted  by  a  passive  faith  in  patriotism.  It  calls  for 
a  constant  well-directed  effort  towards  national 
union,  a  tireless  organization,  through  the  forces  of 
communication  within  the  nation  itself,  of  the  power 
ful  human  elements  of  loyalty  not  only  to  the  flag, 
but  to  the  spirit  behind  the  flag,  to  our  traditions  of 
human  greatness  and  worth.  Under  the  stimulus 
of  liberty  there  can  be  produced  a  far  sounder  and 
more  lasting  unity,  in  a  nation  of  one  hundred  and 
ten  million  or  even  of  two  hundred  and  ten  million 
people,  covering  a  vast  territory  extending  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  than  was  ever  possible  in 
the  narrow  confines  of  ancient  Greece.  But  if 
these  forces  of  cohesion  are  neglected,  there  are  the 
elements  in  America  of  disunion,  elements  which  if 
allowed  to  operate  without  restriction  might  well 
produce  in  a  century  the  same  kaleidoscopic  group 
ing  and^je-grouping  of  peoples  we  now  associate 


288  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

with  the  early  history  of  South  America,  or  of  the 

Balkan  states.     This  is  a  living  and  fundamental 

American  problem.     This,  too,  is  a  problem  which 

will   never    be    permanently    solved,    because   with 

/milipn  always  comes  the  challenge  of  disunion. 

/      The  principle  of  democracy  is  being  determined 

/   today.     It    will    be    re-determined    in    every    age. 

I    Today  we  are  facing  the  paramount  issue  of  adapting 

I     our  institutions  founded  on  democracy  to  the  grow- 

I     ing  self-consciousness  of  millions  of  men  and  women. 

And  upon  the  solution  of  our  American  problem 

I      will  depend  the  part  we  can  play  in  the  peace  and 

I      progress  of  mankind  as  a  whole.     If  we  are  strong, 

we  can  help  our  neighbors.     If  we  are  weak  our 

help  is  valueless. 

"The  application  of  the  American  liberal  spirit 
to  the  constantly  recurring  questions  of  industry 
and  politics  has  been  suggested  in  previous  chapters. 
It  is  hoped  that  those  with  time  and  capacity  for 
such  work  will  find  it  possible  to  expand  this  theme, 
necessarily  touched  on  here  in  its  broadest  and  most 
general  aspects.  A  concrete  example,  however,  of 
a  public  figure  who  was  in  many  vivid  ways  the  in 
carnation  of  the  pioneer  spirit,  will  complete  the 
present  study. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  embodied  many  of  the  quali 
ties  which  have  been  discussed  in  these  pages.  Per 
haps  the  most  obvious  of  all  was  his  energy,  his 
tireless  activity,  which  has  been  characterized  in  a 
memorable  way  in  "The  Education  of  Henry 
Adams": 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  289 

"Power  when  wielded  by  abnormal  energy  is 
the  most  serious  of  facts,  and  all  Roosevelt's  friends 
knew  that  his  restless  and  combative  energy  was 
more  than  abnormal.  Roosevelt  more  than  any 
other  man  living  within  the  range  of  notoriety 
showed  the  singular  primitive  quality  that  be 
longs  to  ultimate  matter  —  the  quality  that  med 
iaeval  theology  assigned  to  God  —  he  was  pure 
act."  * 

And  yet  the  energy  of  Roosevelt  was  not  the 
"pure  act"  of  the  ancients.  It  was  a  distinctly 
human  and  personal  energy  which  won  the  sym 
pathy  of  men  and  women  everywhere.  His  eternal 
youthfulness  and  enthusiasm  touched  a  responsive 
chord  in  all  Americans,  for  the  qualities  which  he 
developed  to  the  utmost  were  qualities  particularly 
characteristic  of  the  American  spirit.  Roosevelt 
was  not  loved  because  he  was  distinguished  along 
lines  strange  and  awesome  and  unfamiliar.  He 
simply  did  the  things  every  American  wanted  to  do, 
except  that  he  did  more  of  them,  and  accomplished 
them  with  greater  vigor  and  success.  In  a  nation 
of  men  of  action  he  was  the  most  active.  He  liked 
strong  and  distinguished  men  around  him.  In 
almost  all  of  his  varied  activities  he  numbered  among 
his  friends  men  more  distinguished  than  himself. 
But  no  American  ever  lived  who,  in  addition  to 
achieving  preeminence  in  one  great  field  of  activity, 
public  service,  attained  substantial  distinction  in 
so  many  other  fields  of  effort. 


290  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a  living  interpretation  of 
the  history  of  his  country.  If  we  admit  the  in 
fluence  of  the  frontier  upon  American  history,  if 
we  admit  the  character-building  power  growing  out 
of  the  conquest  of  a  continent,  and  a  century  of 
struggle  with  the  wilderness,  the  question  then 
arises,  What  are  we  to  do  today  who  live  in  crowded 
cities?  What  are  we  to  do  today  who  grow  up 
and  die  without  ever  setting  foot  on  a  forest  path? 
What  are  we  to  do  today  when  one  set  of  problems 
confronts  the  people  of  the  Atlantic  Coast,  the 
people  in  the  conquered  wilderness  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley  and  the  people  of  the  Far  West  ?  Does 
not  the  life  of  Roosevelt  give  us  the  answer?  Our 
last  material  frontier  having  been  conquered,  we  now  face 
the  great  problems  of  social,  political  and  industrial 
organization  and  of  artistic  creation.  A  frontier  still  con 
fronts  us,  and  only  in  the  frontier  spirit  can  we  meet  it. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  born  in  the  East,  of  an 
old  merchant  family.  He  was  a  frail  boy.  There 
seemed  to  be  in  his  make-up  the  raw  material  for 
a  more  or  less  ordinary  professional  or  business 
career.  What  led  him  toward  the  West?  What 
nationalized  him?  What  touched  in  him  the  spark 
of  undying  American  fire  and  gave  him  the  strength 
to  become  one  of  the  greatest  Americans  of  history? 

Probably  the  complete  answer  to  this  question 
will  never  be  known.  But  the  fact  remains  that 
Roosevelt  appreciated,  as  fully  as  ever  man  ap 
preciated,  the  significance  to  the  American  people 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  291 

of  the  winning  of  the  West.  And  yet  he  was  not  a 
Westerner.  In  putting  into  practice  in  his  crowded 
life  the  best  elements  of  the  American  spirit,  he 
taught  the  broad  lesson  that  an  appreciation  of  the 
frontier  does  not  detract  from  a  fair  estimate  of  the 
contributions  of  Puritan  New  England,  or  of  Cava 
lier  and  Puritan  Virginia  to  the  splendid  fabric  of 
twentieth  century  Americanism.  Roosevelt  never 
ceased  to  be  loyal  to  the  East,  especially  to  the  city 
and  state  in  which  he  was  born.  But  first  of  all  he 
was  an  American,  a  continental  American,  who 
realized  that  the  early  founders  of  the  Republic  and 
the  pioneer  leaders  on  the  succession  of  frontiers 
moving  steadily  westward  to  the  Pacific  both 
played  a  significant  part  in  establishing  the  United 
States. 

As  an  American,  Roosevelt  mistrusted  no  man  be 
cause  he  differed  with  his  personal  beliefs  or  his 
ancestry.  No  man  had  a  greater  pride  in  his  Ameri 
can  parentage,  and  yet  he  warmly  admired  men  of 
foreign  birth.  In  the  early  days  of  his  career, 
when  he  was  President  of  the  Police  Board  of  New 
York,  he  said,  "There  must  be  a  feeling  of  broad, 
radical  and  intense  Americanism  if  good  work  is  to 
be  done  in  any  direction.  Our  citizens  must  act 
as  Americans;  not  as  Americans  with  a  prefix  and 
qualifications;  not  as  Irish-Americans,  German- 
Americans,  native-Americans,  but  as  Americans 
pure  and  simple.  It  is  an  outrage  for  a  man  to 
drag  foreign  politics  into  our  own  politics  and  vote 


292  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

as  an  Irishman  or  a  German  or  other  foreigner. 
It  is  no  less  an  "outrage  to  discriminate  against  one 
who  has  become  an  American  in  good  faith,  because 
of  his  creed  or  birthplace." 

Wherever  a  man  came  from,  whatever  his  posi 
tion  in  life,  the  only  questions  Roosevelt  asked 
were,  "Is  he  straight?"  "Is  he  strong?" 

Charles  Francis  Adams  delivered  an  address  in 
Virginia  twelve  years  ago  at  the  centennial  of  Robert 
E.  Lee.  He  began  his  remarks  with  the  following; 
words:  "Having  occasion  once  to  refer  in  discussion 
to  certain  of  the  founders  of  our  Massachusetts 
Commonwealth,  I  made  the  assertion  that  their  force 
lay  in  character;  and  I  added  that  in  saying  this  I 
paid  and  meant  to  pay  the  highest  tribute  which  in 
my  judgment  could  be  paid  to  a  community  or  to 
its  typical  men.  Quite  a  number  of  years  have 
passed  since  I  so  expressed  myself,  and  the  older  I 
have  grown  and  the  more  I  have  studied  and  seen, 
the  greater  in  my  esteem  as  an  element  of  strength 
in  a  people  has  character  become,  and  the  less  in 
the  conduct  of  human  affairs  have  I  thought  of 
mere  capacity  or  even  genius." 

In  the  word  character  lies  the  key  to  the  life  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt  and  his  permanent  place  in 
history.  Sincerity,  love  of  the  square  deal,  courage, 
persistency  —  the  possessor  of  these  qualities  may 
claim  kinship  with  the  tradition  of  the  Pilgrims 
who  fought  against  nature  and  the  Indians  on  the 
first  frontier  of  America;  he  is  the  heir  of  the  spirit 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  293 

generated  in  the  liberty-loving  groups  of  men  and 
women  who  pushed  that  frontier  in  successive 
stages  across  the  Alleghanies,  through  the  deep 
forests  of  the  old  Northwest  to  the  Mississippi, 
across  the  great  plains  and  prairies,  through  the 
passes  of  the  Rockies  to  Oregon  and  to  California. 
In  this  victorious  progress  the  absence  of  character 
did  not  spell  failure  alone.  In  most  cases  it  meant 
death. 

We  have  referred  to  Roosevelt  as  a  continental 
American.  We  proudly  state  that  the  men  who 
wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  fought 
the  Revolution  were  Americans,  pioneer  Ameri 
cans,  who  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion  the  spirit 
which  brought  their  forefathers  across  the  Atlantic. 
Nor  did  the  advance  of  the  western  frontiersmen 
lessen  the  spirit  of  self-reliance  which  characterized 
the  pioneers  of  Massachusetts  Bay  and  Jamestown. 
But  the  sons  of  the  early  pioneers  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  looked  eastward  across  the  Atlantic  for 
much  of  the  substance  of  their  lives.  While  Benja 
min  Franklin  was  a  pioneer  in  spirit,  it  may  be  said 
of  him  without  disparagement  that  fundamentally  he 
was  a  colonial  Englishman  rather  than  a  typical 
American.  It  was  only  when  the  sturdy  Virginians 
and  Pennsylvanians,  mingling  with  the  Scotch- 
Irish  and  other  vigorous  stocks,  pushed  through 
the  Cumberland  Gap  and  down  the  Ohio,  and  were 
thrown  upon  their  own  resources,  that  the  European 
tradition  was  laid  aside  and  a  definite  American 


294  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

self-confidence  developed.  These  pioneers  turned 
their  backs  on  Europe  and  their  eyes  toward  the 
setting  sun.  They  were  the  first  characteristic 
native  Americans,  drawing  their  inspiration  from 
their  own  environment  and  creating  their  own 
traditions. 

Out  of  that  life  grew  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
guided  America  through  an  overshadowing  crisis, 
not  by  diplomatic  finesse,  but  by  rugged  simplicity 
and  fair  dealing,  by  knowledge  of  men  and  women, 
by  courage  and  human  sympathy  and  persistency. 
We  look  upon  him  as  the  product  of  the  West,  but 
we  may  well  regard  him  as  the  first  great  world 
figure  who  grew  out  of  that  dominating  frontier 
influence  which  has  distinguished  us  from  all  other 
peoples  in  the  world. 

That  same  tradition  inspired  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
His  best  piece  of  historical  writing  was  a  study  of 
the  expansion  of  America  to  the  westward.  He 
stood  for  that  same  individual  courage,  for  common 
sense  and  a  desire  to  get  results  in  dealing  with  public 
questions,  for  that  sheer  joy  of  life,  in  work  and  in 
play,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  type  he  loved. 
He  learned  and  lived  the  fundamentals  of  American 
character,  frontier-grown.  He  took  these  funda 
mentals  and  built  upon  them  a  national  and  an 
international  policy.  One  hesitates  to  attempt  to 
interpret  the  viewpoint  of  a  man  who  touched 
upon  so  many  modern  problems,  and  who  is  being 
quoted  by  the  advocates  of  both  sides  of  almost 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  295 

every  current  controversy.  One  has  only  to  try 
it  to  find  out  how  difficult  it  is.  But  it  may  be  of 
value  simply  to  recall  the  attitude  of  Roosevelt  on 
a  few  significant  points  in  order  to  emphasize  his 
liberalism. 

Some  say  that  his  views  are  far  too  general  to 
meet  the  needs  of  our  day.  For  example,  it  is  true 
that  his  doctrine  of  the  "square  deal"  is  not  an 
industrial  panacea.  Other  things  are  necessary, 
such  as  careful  and  persistent  analysis  of  the  in 
tricate  problems  by  engineers  and  men  of  lifelong 
industrial  experience.  But  these  things  have  been 
done,  and  well  done,  for  decades.  Alone  they  will 
not  establish  industrial  peace.  They  help  to  es 
tablish  a  body  of  sound  working  data,  but  only  the 
spirit  of  the  "square  deal"  can  shape  the  facts 
into  a  firm  and  lasting  basis  for  industrial  peace. 

Will  anyone  argue  that  if  the  "square  deal"  is 
actually  applied  by  all  parties  to  the  present  con 
troversy  a  solution  will  not  be  reached?  To  the 
question,  What  is  the  square  deal?  it  may  be 
answered  that  it  is  the  solution  applied  by  trained 
and  fair-minded  men  in  each  individual  case,  after 
all  parties  to  a  dispute  have  come  together  with  an 
honest  desire  to  bring  about  a  fair  settlement,  and 
laid  the  facts  on  the  table  without  reserve.  Roose 
velt  rated  men  as  more  important  than  multiplica 
tion  tables.  He  trusted  to  their  good  sense  and 
fairness.  And  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  his 
confidence  was  justified.  Suspicion  breeds  sus- 


296  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

picion.  Trust  and  fair  dealing  on  one  side  of  the 
table  goes  a  great  way  toward  bringing  about  a 
similar  attitude  on  the  other.  He  realized  that  an 
industrial  problem  could  not  be  solved  unless  the 
men  who  were  working  for  a  solution  knew  their 
facts  absolutely;  but  he  also  knew  that  no  group, 
no  matter  how  fully  they  knew  the  facts,  would  ever 
reach  an  agreement  if  they  convened  with  convic 
tion  that  there  was  no  common  ground  for  com 
promise  and  cooperation. 

The  question  is,  are  we  as  a  people  capable  of 
evolving  a  living  and  working  basis  for  the  tremen 
dous  population  which  calls  itself  American?  Are 
American  institutions  elastic  enough  to  adapt  them 
selves  to  the  demands  which  the  necessities  of  pro 
duction  make  upon  them  ?  Have  our  fathers  handed 
down  to  us  a  form  of  government  and  human  society 
which  is  best  calculated  to  produce  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number  of  our  people  now 
and  in  the  future?  Are  our  present  difficulties 
due  to  temporary  maladjustments  and  inadequate 
coordinations,  or  are  they  due  to  fundamental  im 
perfections  in  the  system  itself?  The  radicals  be 
lieve  the  system  is  wrong  and  should  be  discarded. 
Roosevelt  believed  it  was  right  and  should  be 
maintained.  If  the  members  of  a  board  of  arbi 
tration  meet  to  discuss  a  wage  scale  under  the 
American  system  of  government  and  some  of  the 
conferees  are  not  dissatisfied  with  the  wage  scale,  but 
with  American  institutions  as  a  whole,  it  is  idle  to 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  297 

look  for  an  agreement.  There  cannot  possibly  be 
a  meeting  of  minds. 

Running  through  the  whole  philosophy  of  life 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  a  philosophy  which  he 
actually  lived  as  fully  as  any  man  of  our  time,  is 
the  emphasis  upon  the  fundamental  character  of 
the  average  man  and  woman,  the  fundamental  need 
of  achieving  greatness  through  the  performance  of 
an  infinite  number  of  small  tasks  well,  of  being 
ready  to  do  the  great  tasks  when  fortune  throws 
them  in  our  way.  Out  of  a  life  of  public  service 
extending  over  forty  years  he  emerged  with  the 
unshaken  conviction  that  there  were  in  the  rock 
and  fiber  of  American  character  the  qualities  which 
would  enable  the  nation  to  endure. 

He  believed  in  work.  He  believed  in  working 
harder  than  any  other  man  was  willing  to  work. 
He  never  could  be  convinced  of  the  advantage  to 
the  community  of  persons  who  produce  nothing. 
All  his  friends  were  producers.  They  may  have 
been  in  overalls,  or  they  may  have  been  in  broad 
cloth.  Some  of  his  close  friends  were  members  of 
labor  unions;  others  were  cowboys;  others  were 
poets;  others  were  heads  of  great  industries.  He 
made  no  distinction  between  a  poor  man  and  a  rich 
man  except  as  their  character  might  differ.  But  on 
the  basis  of  character  and  on  the  basis  of  work 
done,  he  distinguished  very  rigidly  and  with  an 
almost  uncanny  insight.  He  said,  "Not  once  in  a 
thousand  times  is  it  possible  to  achieve  anything 


298  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

except  by  labor,  by  effort,  by  serious  purpose  and 
by  the  willingness  to  run  risk." 

Above  all  he  believed  that  steady  day-to-day 
work  and  not  revolutionary  reform  is  the  essence 
of  progress.  "In  the  last  analysis  the  welfare  of  a 
nation  depends  upon  its  having  shown  a  healthy 
development.  A  healthy  social  system  must  of 
necessity  represent  the  sum  of  very  many  moral, 
intellectual  and  economic  forces,  and  each  such 
force  must  depend  in  its  turn  partly  upon  the  whole 
system.  .  .  .  Society  is  of  course  infinitely  more 
complex  than  the  human  body.  The  influences  that 
tell  upon  it  are  countless;  they  are  closely  inter 
woven,  inter-dependent,  and  each  is  acted  upon  by 
many  others.  It  is  pathetically  absurd,  when  such 
are  the  conditions,  to  believe  that  some  one  simple 
panacea  for  all  evils  can  be  found.  Slowly,  with 
infinite  difficulty,  with  bitter  disappointments, 
with  stumblings  and  haltings,  we  are  working  our 
way  upward  and  onward." 

No  one  was  more  uncompromising  than  Theodore 
Roosevelt  when  it  came  to  questions  of  fundamental 
right  or  patriotism,  and  yet  no  one  was  more  definite 
than  he  with  regard  to  the  necessity  of  making  haste 
slowly,  of  sticking  to  the  middle  of  the  trail,  of  trust 
ing  men  and  women  because  of  their  broad  funda 
mental  honesty  and  not  expecting  every  leader  to 
be  a  prophet  or  every  measure  to  be  perfect.  He 
believed  in  compromise.  He  believed  a  public  of 
ficial  was  looked  to  by  the  people  to  get  results; 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  299 

consequently,  he  believed  that  there  was  a  time  to 
act  and  a  time  to  refrain  from  action.  But  let 
no  man  suggest  that  Roosevelt  ever  compromised 
upon  his  principles  of  right.  If  compromise  in 
volved  the  question  as  to  whether  the  right  action 
should  be  taken  today  or  postponed  until  tomorrow, 
whether  the  entire  purpose  to  be  gained  should  be 
pressed  for  at  once,  or  part  secured  now  and  the  re 
mainder  later,  then  he  was  ready  to  compromise. 
But  if  the  suggested  compromise  involved  a  de 
parture  by  one  iota  from  what  he  believed  to  be 
fair  and  honest,  the  answer  came  with  a  suddenness 
and  finality  quicker  than  thought  itself.  He  never 
had  to  debate  such  questions  with  his  soul.  In  a 
letter  written  in  1916  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  said: 

"For  five  years  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  I  were  in 
timately  associated.  We  met  each  week  in  editorial 
conference  to  consider  what  course  The  Outlook 
should  pursue  in  dealing  with  public  questions.  He 
never  asked  how  a  given  course  of  conduct  would 
affect  either  the  fortunes  of  The  Outlook  or  his  own 
political  prospects;  always  he  addressed  himself  to 
two  questions,  what  is  right?  and  what  can  wisely 
and  effectively  be  done  to  promote  the  right?" 

The  liberals  of  today  are  coming  more  and  more 
to  recognize  the  lesson  in  the  character  of  Roosevelt. 
All  his  life  his  active  mind  was  at  w^ork  bringing 
his  actions  in  line  with  the  principles  he  had  drawn 
from  his  remarkably  varied  experience  and  study. 
He  read  thousands  of  books,  and  better  still,  he 


300  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

read  thousands  of  people.  And  yet  he  was  not  a 
complicated  figure.  When  we  look  back  on  his 
life  and  try  to  draw  out  the  lesson  of  his  work  and 
the  lesson  of  his  words,  we  see  in  them  both  the  few 
simple  strains  of  vigor  and  liberalism  and  fair  play. 
In  a  recent  penetrating  editorial,  the  New  York 
Globe  had  this  to  say  of  him: 

"More  sweeping  changes  are  now  conceded,  even 
by  conservatives,  than  any  which  he  ever  seriously 
considered.  But  his  influence  is  helping  us  to  pass 
through  the  necessary  transition  in  comparative 
peace.  Between  the  blind  forces  on  one  side  and 
the  other  of  the  industrial  conflict  stands  a  more  or 
less  enlightened  middle  group,  which  is  trying  to 
discern  not  a  balance  of  power  but  an  equilibrium  of 
justice.  This  is  Roosevelt's  group.  He  trained  it. 
He  more  than  any  other  modern  figure  helped  to 
form  the  ideals  of  what  we  loosely  call  'the  public'." 

"Not  a  balance  of  power  but  an  equilibrium  of 
justice"  -this  is  the  torch  the  liberals  of  America 
must  take  up  and  bear  forward.  "This  is  Roose 
velt's  group.  He  trained  it."  It  is  a  group  which 
grows  larger  each  day.  It  is  not  partisan  but  na 
tional.  It  cannot  be  captured  by  any  clique  or  party. 
There  is  no  man  in  America  today  capable  of  mon 
opolizing  the  tradition  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  His 
achievement  is  the  property  of  the  whole  people. 
He  has  lived  to  set  up  standards  which  his  friends 
will  continue  to  hold  aloft.  And  who  are  not  his 
friends?  Now  that  he  has  gone  we  realize  how  well 


THE  NEW  FRONTIER  301 

his  country  could  have  used  him  in  these  trying 
days;  and  we  rejoice  that  his  spirit  is  marching  on. 

The  spirit  of  this  notable  modern  frontiersman 
lives  in  the  stirring  words  of  Herman  Hagedorn: 

"And  now  the  great  hunter  has  gone  West.  He 
was  found  faithful  in  a  few  things  and  he  was  made 
ruler  over  many;  he  cut  his  own  trail  clean  and 
straight  and  millions  followed  him  toward  the  light. 
He  was  frail;  he  made  himself  a  tower  of  strength. 
He  was  timid;  he  made  himself  a  lion  of  courage. 
He  was  a  dreamer;  he  became  one  of  the  great 
doers  of  all  time.  Men  put  their  trust  in  him; 
women  found  a  champion  in  him;  kings  stood  in 
awe  of  him,  but  children  made  him  their  playmate. 
He  broke  a  nation's  slumber  with  his  cry,  and  it 
rose  up.  He  touched  the  eyes  of  blind  men  with 
a  flame  that  gave  them  vision.  Souls  became  swords 
through  him;  swords  became  servants  of  God. 
He  was  loyal  to  his  country  and  he  exacted  loyalty; 
he  loved  many  lands,  but  he  loved  his  own  land  best. 
He  was  terrible  in  battle,  but  tender  to  the  weak; 
joyous  and  tireless,  being  free  from  self-pity;  clean 
with  a  cleanness  that  cleansed  the  air  like  a  gale. 
His  courtesy  knew  no  wealth,  no  class,  his  friend 
ship,  no  creed  or  color  or  race.  His  courage  stood 
every  onslaught  of  savage  beast  and  ruthless  man, 
of  loneliness,  of  victory,  of  defeat.  His  mind  was 
eager,  his  heart  was  true,  his  body  and  spirit,  de 
fiant  of  obstacles,  ready  to  meet  what  might  come. 
He  fought  injustice  and  tyranny;  bore  sorrow 


302  THE  NEW  FRONTIER 

gallantly;  loved  all  nature,  bleak  spaces  and  hardy 
companions,  hazardous  adventure  and  the  zest  of 
battle.  Wherever  he  went  he  carried  his  own 
pack;  and  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  he 
kept  his  conscience  for  his  guide." 

He  won  through  to  a  new  frontier  of  American 
character.  The  trail  he  blazed  was  a  trail  of  liberal 
leadership.  It  is  a  challenge  to  all  whose  blood 
has  been  touched  by  the  fire  of  the  American  spirit, 
to  all  who  believe  that  Americanism  means  that 
men  and  women  are  born  to  put  more  into  their  country 
than  they  take  out  of  it. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

FOR  the  benefit  of  those  unfamiliar  with  the  bibli 
ography  of  American  history  the  following  list  is  appended, 
with  the  distinct  understanding  that  it  is  the  list  of  a 
layman  and  not  of  a  scientific  student  of  history.  The 
list  is  based  largely  on  books  in  the  author's  own  library 
or  lists  which  have  been  suggested  by  those  whose  judg 
ment  on  such  matters  is  most  likely  to  appeal  to  the 
average  reader.  These  books  have  been  chosen  primarily 
because  they  were  sound  and  accurate,  and  with  an  eye 
to  their  being  readable. 

Further  lists  may  be  found  by  referring  to  the  bibli 
ographies  at  the  end  of  many  of  the  volumes  and  in  some 
cases  at  the  end  of  chapters  in  some  of  the  volumes;  and 
reference  is  made  below  to  one  excellent  bibliographical 
list: 

I.     Excellent  Single  Volumes: 

The  Development  of  the  United  States.     Max  Farrand   (Houghton, 

Mifflin). 

This  brief,  quick  survey  of  the  whole  period  of  the  history  of  the 
United  States  has  a  fresh  point  of  view  and  is  extremely  well  written. 
It  may  be  regarded  as  the  minimum  that  any  intelligent  American 
should  know  of  the  history  of  his  country. 

The  Frontier  in  American  History.     Frederick  J.  Turner  (Henry 

Holt). 

This  material  has  been  frequently  referred  to  in  the  text. 
The  Critical  Period  of  American  History.     John  Fiske  (Houghton, 

Mifflin). 

Perhaps  the  best  single  piece  of  writing  which  Fiske  did.  It  gives 
a  splendid  picture  of  the  stirring  years  which  preceded  the  adoption  of 
the  American.  Constitution, 


306  APPENDIX 

A  Short  History  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  James  K.  Hosmer  (Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin). 

This  small  book  contains  a  vivid  presentation  of  the  essential  facts 
of  the  opening  up  of  the  great  Empire  between  the  Alleghanies  and 
the  Mississippi  Valley. 

History  of  the  Civil  War.    James  Ford  Rhodes  (Macmillan). 

The  first  adequate  single  volume  treating  of  the  American  Civil  War. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact,  in  view  of  the  multitude  of  histories  now  ap 
pearing  on  the  war  in  Europe,  that  with  all  the  material  close  at  hand 
a  really  adequate,  brief  summary  of  the  American  Civil  War  did  not 
appear  until  more  than  fifty  years  after  the  war  was  over. 

2.  The  Background: 

The  Expansion  of  Europe.    W.  C.  Abbott  (Henry  Holt). 
Referred  to  on  pages  38,  40,  43. 

3.  Standard  Sets: 

France  and  England  in  North  America.  Francis  Parkman  (Twelve 
Volumes)  —  (Little,  Brown). 

This  set  includes:  The  Jesuits  in  North  America;  La  Salle  and  the 
Discovery  of  the  Great  West;  A  Half  Century  of  Conflict;  Pioneers  of  France 
in  the  New  World;  The  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac;  Montcalm  and  Wolfe. 

Works  on  the  Early  History  of  America.     John  Fiske  (Houghton, 

Mifflin). 

The  series  includes:  The  Discovery  of  America,  in  two  volumes;  Old 
Virginia  and  Her  Neighbors,  in  two  volumes;  The  Beginnings  of  New 
England,  in  one  volume;  New  France  and  New  England,  in  one  volume; 
The  Dutch  and  Quaker  Colonies  in  America,  in  two  volumes;  The  American 
Revolution,  in  two  volumes;  and  the  single  volume  mentioned  above. 

History  of  the  United  States.    Henry  Adams  (Scribner). 

This  brilliant  study  in  nine  small  volumes  covers  in  a  suggestive 
manner  the  history  of  the  United  States  from  1801  to  1817,  the  ad 
ministrations  of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  and  gives  a  subtle  analysis  of 
the  character  and  early  development  of  the  American  people. 

The  Winning  of  the  West.    Theodore  Roosevelt  (Various  editions). 

This  is  probably  Roosevelt's  best  piece  of  historical  writing. 

History  of  the  United  States.  James  Ford  Rhodes  (Seven  Volumes  — 
1850-1897)  —  (Macmillan). 

A  highly  readable  story  with  a  rich  American  flavor,  based  to  a 
considerable  extent  on  contemporary  newspaper  accounts.  It  brings 
out  vividly  the  personalities  of  the  great  figures  involved  in  the  Civil 


APPENDIX  307 

War  and  the  years  which  preceded  it.  It  does  not  take  into  considera 
tion  the  elements  of  national  progress  particularly  associated  with  the 
significant  westward  movement. 

History  of  the  United  States.  Edward  Channing  (Four  Volumes)  — 
(Macmillan). 

A  readable  and  suggestive  history  of  the  United  States  from  the 
earliest  times  up  to  1815,  which  concludes  Volume  Four.  It  is  under 
stood  that  Volume  Five,  which  will  treat  of  the  Westward  movement 
is  nearly  completed.  These  volumes  have  a  strong  appeal  to  the  average 
reader  because  of  the  straightforwardness  with  which  the  facts  are 
presented.  While  not  without  vision  and  suggestiveness,  the  writer 
distinctly  has  his  feet  on  the  ground. 

The  American  Revolution.    Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan  (Six  Volumes) 

—  (Longmans,  Green). 

A  fair  and  brilliant  piece  of  historical  writing  by  a  sympathetic 
Englishman. 

The  American  Nation.    Edited  by  A.  B.  Hart  (Twenty-seven  Volumes) 

—  (Harper). 

A  cooperative  work  which  covers  American  history  from  the  earliest 
times  down  to  the  present  day.  Each  volume  is  written  by  an  expert. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  general  reader  these  volumes  are  somewhat 
unequal  in  interest,  but  some  of  them  cover  phases  of  our  history  which 
cannot  be  found  briefly  and  adequately  treated  elsewhere.  The  general 
reader  will  easily  find  by  glancing  over  the  individual  titles  which  books 
appeal  to  his  interest. 

The  Chronicles  of  America.    Edited  by  Allen  Johnson  (Fifty  Volumes) 

—  (Yale  University  Press). 

The  publication  of  The  Chronicles  of  America  marks  an  epoch  in 
American  historical  writing.  Not  only  are  these  books  remarkable 
examples  of  book  making,  attractive  in  size  and  easy  to  read,  but  they 
are  the  first  attempt  to  present  the  history  of  America  to  the  general 
reader  in  the  form  of  stories  with  real  literary  flavor,  which  at  the  same 
time  adhere  closely  to  the  actual  facts  of  history.  Like  the  volumes  in 
the  American  Nation  series,  the  volumes  which  have  so  far  appeared 
in  the  Chronicles  of  America  are  somewhat  uneven;  but  they  are  all 
readable  and  some  of  them  as,  for  example,  The  Old  Merchant  Marine, 
by  Ralph  D.  Payne;  The  Passing  of  the  Frontier,  by  Emerson  Hough; 
The  Eve  of  the  Revolution,  by  Carl  Becker,  to  select  only  a  few  titles, 
are  positively  brilliant. 


308  APPENDIX 

The  Riverside  History  of  the  United  States.  (Four  Volumes)  — 
(Houghton,  Mifflin). 

This  compact  history  in  four  small,  well  written  volumes  by  four 
authorities  is  perhaps  the  most  available  briefer  history  of  the  United 
States. 

4.  Biography: 

The  American  Statesmen.    (Houghton,  Mifflin.) 
These   small   volumes   are   generally   adequate   treatments  of  the 
principal  figures. 

Among  the  other  brilliant  American  biographies  may  be  mentioned 
Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Lord  Charnwood  (Henry  Holt);  Daniel  Boont, 
by  Reuben  Goldthwaites  (Appleton);  Alexander  Hamilton,  by  Frederick 
Oliver  (Putnam);  Stonewall  Jackson,  G.  F.  R.  Henderson  (Longmans, 
Green);  Personal  Memoirs  of  U.  S.  Grant,  (Century  Co.);  The  Life  cf 
John  Hay,  William  Roscoe  Thayer  (Houghton,  Mifflin). 

5.  Special  topics: 

American  History  and  its  Geographic  Conditions,  E.  C.  Semple 
(Houghton,  Mifflin);  Principles  of  American  Diplomacy,  John 
Bassett  Moore  (Harper);  The  American  Commonwealth,  James  Bryce 
(Macmillan);  History  of  Labor  in  the  United  States,  John  R.  Commons, 
Editor,  (Macmillan);  Economic  History  of  the  United  States,  E.  L. 
Bogart  (Longmans,  Green);  Financial  History  of  the  United  States, 
D.  R.  Dewey  (Longmans,  Green);  Industrial  History  of  the  United 
States,  Katharine  Coman  (Macmillan). 

6.  Bibliography: 

Guide  to  the  Study  and  Reading  of  American  History  t  Channing,  Hart 
&  Turner  (Ginn). 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  299 

Abbott,  Professor  W.  C,  "Expan 
sion  of  Europe,"  quoted,  38-39, 
39-40,  41-42;  cited,  44 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  quoted, 
292 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  50 

Adams,  Henry,  quoted,  IO,  li; 
his  "History  of  the  United 
States,"  characterized  as  best 
American  historical  writing,  53; 
"The  Education  of  Henry 
Adams,"  quoted,  288-292 

Advertising,  its  magnitude  and 
importance,  220-223 

Allen,  Ethan,  48 

American  Alliance  for  Labor  and 
Democracy,  quoted,  116-118  - 

Americanism,  analysis  of,  3-10; 
eternal  youthfulness  a  charac 
teristic  of,  6,  26;  essence  of, 
269-270 

Barton,  Bruce,  "The  New  Yorker's 
Creed,"  quoted,  188-189 

Becker,  Professor  Carl,  "Begin 
ning  of  the  American  People," 
quoted,  44-45 

Belleau  Wood,  battle  of,  42 

Bolshevism,  70;  how  to  combat 
it,  197-198 

Boone,  Daniel,  13,  14,  16 

Buchanan,  James,  50 

Burton,  Pomeroy,  Manager  of  the 
London  Mail,  quoted,  213-214 


Cabot,  John,  47-48 

Calvin,  John,  89 

Capitalism,  the  United  States 
committed  to,  144-147 

Channing,  Edward,  "History  of 
the  United  States,"  239 

Charnwood,  Lord,  "Life  of  Lin 
coln,"  quoted,  30-31;  cited, 
263 ;  his  analysis  of  the  Ameri 
can  spirit  in  the  "Anglo- 
French  Review,"  quoted,  263- 
269  ^ 

Churchill,  Winston,  quoted,  146 

Clark,  William,  16 

Clay,  Henry,  "Economics  for  the 
General  Public,",  quoted,  156- 

157 

Cleveland,  Grover'ioo 

Columbus,  44,  47 

Congress,  composition  of,  89-90; 
prevailing  criticism  of,  91;  a 
representative  group,  91-92 

Constitutional    Convention,    the, 

133 

Continental  Congress,  the,  19 
Conventions,  their  efficiency,  133- 

134 

Coolidge,-  Governor,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  61 

Cortez,  38 

Crockett,  David,  14,  16 

Danton,  87 

Declaration  of  Independence, 
quoted,  73 


312 


INDEX 


Democracy,  existed  before   1776, 
3-4;   American  democracy,  30 
De  Soto,  48 
Donham,  Dean,  159 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  45 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quoted, 
35-36,  205,  282 

Farrand,  Professor  Max,  "The 
Development  of  the  United 
States,"  quoted,  25-26 

Ferrero,  "Greatness  and  Decline 
of  Rome,"  quoted,  223-224 

Fess,  Dr.  Simeon  D.,  quoted,  99 

Frank,  Glenn,  "The  Politics  of 
Industry,"  quoted,  134-136 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  293 

Free  speech,  curbing  of  during  the 
war,  71-72;  a  foundation  stone 
of  American  liberty,  72;  the 
liberal's  attitude  toward,  74 

Hagedorn,  Herman,  tribute  to 
Roosevelt,  quoted,  301-302 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  English  geog 
rapher,  46 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  "The  Man 
without  a  Country,"  286 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  26,  92,  169, 
170. 

Harvard  Liberal  Club,  the,  57 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  45 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  50 

Hays,  Will  H.,  123-124 

Henderson,  Colonel,  "Stonewall 
Jackson,"  263 

Hillquit,  Morris,  "History  of 
Socialism  in  the  United  States," 
quoted,  80-8 1;  82 

History,  average  American  not 
conversant  with  American  his 


tory,  37;  American  history  les; 
brilliant  than  European,  38; 
Professor  Abbott's  emphasi ; 
upon  progress  of  human  char 
acter  in  history,  38-42;  Ameri 
can  historical  writing  divorce, 
from  literary  merit,  51-52 

Holmes,  Justice,  of  United  State;; 
Supreme  Court,  quoted,  72 

Holmes  Professor  Henry  W. . 
quoted,  197 

Hoover,  Herbert,  his  direction  o  r 
the  Second  Industrial  Confer 
ence  at  Washington,  114. 
quoted,  123 

Hosmer,  James  K.,  86 

Hough,  Emerson,  quoted,  33,  9!: 

Houston,  Samuel,   16 

Industrial  Democracy,  nature  of 

119-124 
Irving,  Washington,  38 

Jackson,  Andrew,  9,  13,  16,  50; 
Fifth  Annual  Message  to  Con 
gress,  quoted,  149-150;  Seventh 
Annual  Message  to  Congress, 
quoted,  150 

James,  William,  "The  Energies 
of  Men,"  quoted,  190-191,  194, 
282-283 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  9,  26,  36,  83, 
154 

Kellog,  Paul  V.,  and  Gleason, 
Arthur,  "British  Labor  and 
the  War,"  quoted,  121-122 

Kieft,  William,  Governor  of  New 
Amsterdam,  169 

Labor  unions,  not  the  real  enemy 
of  business,  in;  distinction 


INDEX 


313 


between  good  and  bad  unions, 
112 

La  Salle,  48 

Liberalism,  defined,  56-57;  Ameri 
ca's  need  of  liberals,  57-60; 
the  liberal,  a  man  who  takes  a 
middle  course,  62-63,  67;  lib 
erals  not  a  class,  68 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  13,  26,  28; 
his  life  embodiment  of  rugged 
Americanism,  30;  cited,  36,  50; 
quoted,  77;  cited,  87,  106,  133, 
I93>  207;  quoted,  270-271; 
cited,  287,  294 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  quoted,  55, 

255 

Lowell,  President  of  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  quoted,  208-211 

Luther,  Martin,  89 

Marco  Polo,  44 

Marx,  Karl,  63 

McClellan,  George  B.,  106 

McKinley,  William,  55 

Mitchell,    President  of   Delaware 

College,  quoted,  63 
Monroe,  James,  9 
Morgenstierne,   Wilhelm,   quoted, 

276-277 
Motley,  John,  "The   Rise  of  the 

Dutch  Republic,"  38,  263 

New  York  Globe,  quoted,  243-244 
Noyes,  Alfred,  quoted,  45-46 

Oliver,  Frederick,  "Alexander 
Hamilton,"  263 

Parkman,    Francis,    his   series  of 

histories    of    America,    49;  a 

man    of  letters    as    well    as  a 
historian,  52-53 


Perkins,  George  W.,  "Economics 
New  versus  Economics  Old," 
in  The  Economic  World,  quoted, 
^236-237 

Pizarro,  38 

Preamble  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  quoted,  97 

Prescott,  William  H.,  37-38 

Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  44 

Quaife,  Dr.  M.  N.,  his  discussion 
on  historical  writing  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley  Historical 
Review,  quoted,  52-53 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  45 

Reactionary,  defined  as  believer 
in  the  status  quo,  65 

"Reds,"  synonymous  with  anar 
chists,  64;  cited,  70;  average 
laboring  man's  scorn  for,  71; 
cited,  198 

Reformation,  the,  88 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  his  opinion 
of  Henry  Adams'  "History  of 
the  United  States,"  53;  his 
history,  54 

Robertson,  James,    16 

Robespierre,  87 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  his  love  of 
open  spaces,  13;  life  embodi 
ment  of  American  spirit,  15; 
"The  Winning  of  the  West," 
quoted,  15-16,  17-18,  19-20, 
20-22;  cited,  26,  28;  knowledge 
of  frontier  spirit,  33;  cited,  36; 
address  before  American  His 
torical  Association  on  "History 
as  Literature,"  quoted,  51-52; 
quoted,  86;  cited,  87,  93,  94, 
H2,  139;  quoted,  161-162; 


INDEX 


cited,  234,  245;   his  philosophy 
of  life,  292-300 
Ruskin,  John,  106 

Scheele,   Swedish   pharmacist,   39 

Sevier,  a  Shenandoah  Huguenot, 
16 

Socialism,  cited,  80,  81;  will  pre 
vail  if  right,  83  , 

Socialists,  defined  as  law-abiding 
radicals,  64-65 

Strikes,  118-119 

Stuyvesant,  Peter,  169 

Sullivan,  Tim,  92 

Syndicalists,  defined  as  violent 
radicals,  64 

Taft,  William  Howard,  50,  166 
The  Economic  World,  newspaper, 

236 

Thoreau,  Henry,  13 
Turner,    Professor    Frederick    J., 

quoted,  4-5,  7,  II,  272-275,  285 


Vanderlip,  Mr.,  201 
Vespucci,  Amerigo,  48 

Wall  Street,  its  history,  169-172; 
its  function,  172-175;  prevail 
ing  attitude  toward,  184-186 

Washington,  George,  13,  26,  36, 
50,  170 

Watauga     Association,     the,     20, 

25 
Watterson,  Colonel  Henry,  quoted, 

107-108 

Wells,  H.  G.,  85 

Whitley  Report,  quoted,  122-123 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  "Division  and 

Reunion,"        quoted,        23-24; 

"Congressional     Government," 

quoted,  99-100;    quoted,    160- 

161 
Women,  their  attainment  of  the 

ballot,  95-98 
Woods,  Arthur,  "The  Policeman 

and  the  Public,"  quoted,  74-76 


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